Employee Relations

Opt-In Ways of Working Designer

Replace a failed or unpopular RTO mandate with a tiered, opt-in ways-of-working program — multiple in-office commitment levels, each paired with a matched incentive.

Inspired by Kenny Mendes·Chief People Officer (formerly first recruiting hire at Box)·Superhuman (Grammarly + Coda merged entity)

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What this skill does

Replaces a failed or unpopular RTO mandate with a tiered, opt-in ways-of-working program — multiple in-office commitment levels, each paired with a matched incentive.

What's included

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Customization intake

A short set of questions about your process and data access.

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Step-by-step implementation process

The exact steps to build this from your own data.

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Definition of done

How to know the output is producing a usable, defensible signal.

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Common pitfalls

Where teams usually get this wrong, and how to avoid it.

The process

Step 1 — Step 1 — Name the trust problem explicitly before designing anything.

Step 2 — Step 2 — Run a structured listening pass on real friction points.

Step 3 — Step 3 — Design multiple named opt-in tiers, not one policy.

Step 4 — Step 4 — Build the evidence-based communication script.

Step 5 — Step 5 — Remove physical/operational barriers to higher tiers.

Step 6 — Step 6 — Build a success dashboard that excludes attendance as the primary metric.

Step 7 — Step 7 — Plan for the pushback segment explicitly.

The download also includes the full definition of done and common pitfalls.

Where this came from

Inspired by Kenny Mendes, Chief People Officer (formerly first recruiting hire at Box) at Superhuman (Grammarly + Coda merged entity)

Heard on Below the Surface (Paradigm)

Listen to episode ↗Guest's LinkedIn ↗

This skill was built by the Skills for People team based on Kenny Mendes's public remarks — not written or reviewed by them.