Going through and coming out of the COVID pandemic changed us in many ways—one of the biggest was remote work. Before 2019, for most of us, being asked to go into an office five days a week would not have raised an eyebrow. But now, five years and one pandemic later, asking employees to go to the office Monday through Friday gets a very different reaction. The increase in remote work and the hybrid model has changed the landscape for many people who work in offices.
As the name suggests, the hybrid work model is a combination of work that takes place in the traditional, physical workspace and remotely, typically in an employee’s home. And now the hybrid work model has become the standard for nearly 100 million employees in Europe and North America.
A Forbes article highlights data from Owl Labs, a video conferencing company which released its 2024 State of Hybrid Work report, which surveyed 2,000 workers. The report revealed that time spent in the office went down by six percent in 2024 from 2023. Frank Weishaupt, CEO of Owl Labs, noted that employees want to go into the office on their terms regardless of the job market and they continue to want flexibility in how they work. “Common deterrents in today’s offices that employers should be aware of include political chats, distractions during time needed for solo deep work, and expensive commutes,” he stated.
The report also reveals that workers cite a commute to an office costing them an average of $42 dollars daily.
But ask the question “is the hybrid model a good thing?” and you will get many different answers depending on whether you are an employee or an employer. Several prominent companies like Amazon, the Washington Post, and Apple have asked their team members to come back to the office. Often reasons like productivity, creativity, and collaboration are used to back up the return to the office request. Moreover, in a Fast Company article, a 2022 survey of more than 1,000 executives and managers on freelance platform Fiverr noted that about 33 percent felt that employees are more motivated if they know they are being watched, and a quarter of them wanted employees in the office so that they would take shorter breaks.
With that said, currently, neither the fully remote nor the fully in-office model has come out on top following the pandemic. It’s also worth noting that one person’s hybrid may be different from another’s. While the most common definition is when employees divide their work time between the office and remotely, it can also be outcome-based, where employees work remotely if they meet specific performance criteria or project deadlines. However, findings from the Financial Post show that the larger a company is, the more likely it will have a hybrid working model. There are also differences based on geography; for instance, while North America tends to choose in-office set ups, Asian Pacific regions tend to offer more remote work, while Europe tends to have combinations of the two.
There is one study that is often cited when talking about the benefits of the hybrid model for work, conducted by Harvard. The Havard Business Review outlined the results. The study randomly selected employees of Trip.com, a large company with 40,000 employees, for a three-day and a five-day in-office work week. In all, 1,600 employees were placed into the two groups based on their birthdays. Interestingly, before the experiment started, managers estimated production would drop 2.6 percent. However, after the six-month trial was completed, productivity went up one percent and those working under the hybrid model had a higher satisfaction rate, while attrition was lowered by 35 percent. This lowered attrition rate was especially notable as it was estimated that for Trip.com, each person who would quit cost the company approximately $30,000 and the lowered attrition rate could save them millions of dollars a year.
Nicholas Bloom, an economist at Stanford University and one of the foremost researchers on hybrid policies, comments on the results in a Stanford news report, “This study offers powerful evidence for why 80 percent of U.S. companies now offer some form of remote work and for why the remaining 20 percent of firms that don’t are likely paying a price,” Bloom writes.
And there is one group of employees who make up roughly half of the working population and particularly benefit from the flexibility that comes with a hybrid work model—women. That’s because it’s women who take on a disproportionate share of home and childcare responsibilities.
Polls indicate that women prefer either fully remote or partial remote work at a rate 10 percent above men. And a study conducted by International Workplace Group found that 72 percent of women would look for a new job if their employer moved away from a hybrid work model. This is not only a statement about how women view a hybrid work model, but also a bright flashing neon sign for employers trying to attract and retain talent.
The International Workplace Group study uncovered that 90 percent of women say that hybrid work “serves as an equalizer in the workplace.” Half of the respondents reported being a caregiver and that because of that, flexible work arrangements allow them more opportunity to balance their role as an employee and the many responsibilities that come with caregiving.
A CNBC article quoted Sallie Krawcheck, Ellevest co-founder and CEO, as she spoke to a group of CFOs in New York City about remote work and the push to return employees to the office. “If we want to go back to the way it was, then acknowledge that you know it works mainly if you’re a man and have a wife at home.”
Although employee satisfaction can increase and attrition rates can drop with a hybrid model, it is clear that not everything can be done as well remotely as it can when people are in the office. Some CEOs are convinced that collaboration and impromptu meetings are more likely to take place when employees are in an office. There is also additional effort needed to coordinate work with remote colleagues, which can lead to missing out on subsequent conversations and minor decisions.
Most agree that there is also a feeling of disconnect that can come from working remotely. The Harvard Business Review recently looked at loneliness in the workplace and how companies need to address it with communal lunches and happy hours rather than more team meetings. And consider the impact on creativity that comes from remote working. While people can have brainstorm sessions using technology, important parts of the creative process—like a fluid conversation in a room or spontaneous sidebars between participants that can lead to new ideas—are not easy to replicate through a computer screen.
Another quality that is critical to the health of a company—but hard to pull off remotely—is creating and maintaining a work culture that makes a company distinct. Both during the pandemic and coming out of it, many employees would have worked together in the office and knew how to work effectively with one another. The question is, how does this culture survive if new employees work remotely? This issue is further complicated as those longer-tenured employees move on. This not only impacts culture but also corporate knowledge, values, expectations, and how to socialize new employees. All of this is important not only for retaining employees, but for recruiting new ones.
So, if neither a complete return to office nor a fully remote approach seems to be the choice of most companies, the question for employers becomes, how do they make the most of a hybrid work model for their business? There are a few things employers should consider. Firstly, the hybrid work model is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Factoring in employees, the work, and the team will make it easier to understand what elements are necessary and what are not. And once a hybrid model is in place, it’s important to avoid mixed messages such as saying that meeting in-person is “preferred.”
Finally, there is always the question of how to motivate employees who work remotely. Intrinsic motivation does not come from a games room, a free lunch, or online team games. It’s built on pride and purpose in the work and trust in the relationship. Companies need to make it a point to use sincere compliments and encouragement to motivate employees wherever they are working. And going into the future, it’s important to acknowledge that there are new norms that must be clearly communicated to help sustain the corporate culture and keep employees productive, motivated, and happy to be at work—wherever that is.
