How to turn the return to work into an opportunity to rethink spaces, habits, and ways of working
September has a bad habit: it lets you start strong in the first few weeks, only to let routine slowly wear you down. And that routine then becomes the norm for the months that follow. Full calendars, meetings popping up everywhere, lunches in front of a screen, commuting, and old habits all return with surprising speed.
For a company, however, the return to work offers something more interesting than simply starting again. The first two weeks can become a small testing ground for observing how people work, which environments they use, where they encounter difficulties, and which habits are worth carrying into the rest of the year.
Here are five areas worth focusing on before September makes the choice for you.
1. Before filling up your calendar, rebuild your rhythm
Starting again means first of all rediscovering your priorities and sustainable ways of working. Immediately piling up meetings, overdue deadlines, and new goals makes it harder to understand where to focus your energy and attention. The first few days can be used to catch up, identify the main priorities, and review the meeting schedule, leaving dedicated blocks for individual work.
Also make room for breaks and recovery: they help create a more balanced working day. The WHO specifically includes excessive workloads, long working hours, and limited control over work among the risks to mental health in the workplace.
2. Look at where people work
September is a great time to review your work environments. Did you know that lighting, temperature, noise, air quality, and workstation organization can affect the daily work experience far more than you might think?
Focus work, calls, meetings, and conversations all require different conditions. Separating areas dedicated to concentration from collaborative spaces helps both in the office and on remote working days. Even tidying up documents, digital folders, and everyday tools can reduce that sense of chaos that often comes with returning to work.
3. Being in the office works better when it has a purpose
Bringing people back into the same building creates physical presence, but that does not necessarily mean the office also creates opportunities to exchange ideas, collaborate, and reconnect as a team. Shared workdays can be used for brainstorming, training, planning, and informal moments, while other activities are better suited to environments designed for concentration.
Coworking can help give purpose to being together. It allows people to choose the right environment for the day: a meeting room to bring the team together, shared areas to encourage exchange and new connections, and more private workstations when focus is needed.
4. If you want to talk about employee well-being, September is the time to listen
A short survey when people return to work can help you understand what they need today.
Perhaps your employees are asking for more autonomy. Flexible working hours, hybrid work, and the possibility to choose different work environments can become valuable organizational tools, especially for parents and caregivers. European work-life balance policies specifically recognize the right to request flexible working arrangements, including changes to working hours and remote work.
5. After fifteen days, ask one question: is it working?
The advantage of treating September as a period of adjustment is that it gives you the opportunity to quickly correct what creates friction. After two weeks, you can assess perceived stress, overtime, the number of meetings, collaboration, use of employee welfare benefits, and respect for disconnecting hours.
Then you can take action. You may discover that some employees work better closer to home. Others might need a professional workstation on remote working days, while some teams may benefit from meeting in locations other than the company headquarters.
Through a network of coworking spaces distributed across the country, NOTONLYDESK can offer employees professional environments suited to different activities, giving them greater freedom to choose where they work.
September then becomes the moment when you decide how you want to work for the rest of the year.
We already provide access to more than 235 active locations across every region of Italy, with verified spaces including workstations, meeting rooms, private offices, and areas dedicated to workshops and events.
NOTONLYDESK, NOD, gives you a single dashboard to manage coworking spaces throughout Italy, using Nodey (digital tokens) to book workstations, meeting rooms, or private offices. If you are using smart working, this concerns you.
Discover how NOD works and activate a trial for your team.
Give purpose to in-person workdays
With NOTONLYDESK, you can offer your team spaces suited to different activities: workstations for focused work, rooms for collaborating, and shared environments where people can reconnect and exchange ideas.
Choose where to work based on the needs of the day and create a more flexible return to work.
Coworking and workspaces starting from €22 per dayWith NOTONLYDESK you can book coworking spaces, workstations, private offices, and meeting rooms throughout Italy, with solutions starting from €22 + VAT per day and with no city-specific surcharges.
= 1 NODEY =
1 DESK WORKSTATION for the entire day, per employee1 MEETING ROOM for 1 hour, per employee
