Make In-Person Time Fair and Strategically Timed

The question was first asked by the employees who had to come into the office more often than their colleagues. Managers were struggling to justify these random office days. And HR was caught in the middle of this debate. The solution that they came up with was: Making in-person time fair and strategically timed.

This process makes office presence intentional, explainable, and evenly distributed based on role needs rather than personal preferences. Fairness here means predictable rules, transparent reasoning, and a clear connection between presence and value. From an HR perspective, this concept sits at the intersection of equity, productivity, and employee experience. When employees understand why their presence matters and when it matters, they receive more clarity, which leads to fewer complaints. 

What does “fair and strategically timed in-person time” mean for HR?

HR’s job is about making in-person time feel justified and evenly distributed so employees do not feel singled out. They need to draft rules that make sense, and people can explain them clearly.

• Creates a sense of fairness: When in-person expectations match role requirements, instead of overloading the same group repeatedly, the employees feel that they are being treated fairly. For this, HR should be able to justify the logic behind asking an employee or a team to work from the office.
  
  
• Strategic timing: In-person time should be tied to outcomes that improve with physical presence, like collaboration, onboarding, or tough conversations. If the office day does not create clarity or momentum, it feels like wasted commuting. HR should be strategic with their communication, as employees show up better when they know why they are there.
  
  
• Acts as a ‘Trust Policy’: Random in-person demands signal that people’s time is flexible and disposable. Justifying the need for their presence signals clarity and trust in the system. 

Why is this process an HR decision instead of managerial?

Once hybrid work entered the building, ‘work from office’ shifted from being the norm to a choice. But different managers had different expectations from their teams, and employees started comparing their treatment with other teams. This is where the HR gets pulled in.

• Inconsistent decision-making: Some teams end up coming in often because their manager prefers it. Other teams stay remote because their manager is not strict about office presence. HR has to step in because the experience feels inconsistent and biased.
  
  
• Removes visibility bias:  People who show up in person get more context and visibility. That visibility can be mistaken for commitment or competence, even when output is equal to that of the remote employees. This may lead to remote employees getting fewer growth opportunities. HR needs guardrails so growth is uniform throughout the organisation.
  
  
• Recognise signs of friction: Employees file complaints, disengage quietly, or start interviewing elsewhere if they feel they are unfairly told to work in-person. HR sees the exits, the morale drop, and the manager conflicts.

How should HR decide when in-person time is necessary?

HR can define the kinds of work where presence improves outcomes and where remote work is equally effective. This makes the purpose of ‘in-person time’ clear.

• Collaborative and strategic triggers: Certain work improves with physical presence, like new team formation, strategic planning, or creative workshops. HR can define these as triggers rather than weekly mandates. This keeps flexibility intact while making expectations clear.
  
  
• Important and high-stakes moments:  Onboarding, team resets, conflict repair, and performance conversations often benefit from in-person nuance. People read body language and emotional tone better face-to-face. HR can recommend presence for these situations without making it a blanket rule.
  
  
• Premium resource: If the office is used for all the meetings and strategic planning, it can turn into chaos. If it is reserved for moments that truly matter, it becomes a valuable asset. The goal is fewer pointless gatherings and more meaningful ones.

How to avoid burnout during in-person work?

In-person policy can fail even if the purpose is correct. The schedule can be unfair if it is clustered, unpredictable, or layered onto already heavy weeks. If in-person presence exhausts employees, it affects their output.

• Pre-planned office days: Employees accept tough requirements more easily when they can plan around them. A clear cadence, like monthly collaboration days or pre-set onsite windows, reduces stress. Random scheduling makes employees feel controlled.
  
  
• Spacing in-person days: Back-to-back office weeks drain energy faster than most leaders realise. Commutes stack, attention drops, and pressure builds. Spacing in-person time improves sustainability. Setting norms like limiting consecutive on-site weeks where possible.
  
  
• Build in recovery for high-intensity in-person work
  Some on-site days, like workshops, resets, or conflict resolution, can be mentally tiring. Normalising lighter follow-through days or remote work after intense collaboration makes in-person work sustainable.
  

How does HR maintain fairness in-person days?

Fairness breaks when organisations pretend all roles have identical in-person needs. HR protects fairness by defining justified differences and preventing those differences from turning into second-class experiences.

• Balanced support: If a role requires more onsite time, HR should ensure that the employee is not punished for it. That balance can come through scheduling predictability, shift preferences, travel support, or clearer growth pathways. The worst outcome is when employees do more physical effort and still feel overlooked.
  
  
• Office presence ≠ Career growth: When promotions and influence lean toward physically visible people, remote employees disengage. This can happen subtly through access to leaders and informal decision-making. HR should push for documented decisions, structured recognition, and equitable access to projects.
  
  
• Design hybrid norms: Global and distributed teams often get forced into schedules that suit one location. That creates exclusion and fatigue. HR should encourage rotating meeting windows, regional anchor moments, and location-aware planning.

Conclusion

Making in-person time fair and strategically timed removes randomness, reduces hidden inequality, and protects employee time with clear, explainable standards. When HR defines why people come in, when they come in, and how often they are expected to do so, confusion drops and trust rises. Employees do not resist presence itself. They resist unpredictability, wasted effort, and unfair burden.

HR’s role is to turn in-person work into a purposeful system. That means setting boundaries, timing presence thoughtfully, and ensuring no group quietly carries more load than others. When done well, in-person time starts feeling like collaboration.