The term “hybrid work” refers to a flexible approach that allows employees to divide their time between working in the office and working from home. The flexibility of mixed work varies. Employees can occasionally choose when to work from home and when to come into the office. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all hybrid model. Each company creates a hybrid model that considers both the needs of the company and the needs of the individual employee.
Finally, it entails a combination of working remotely and in an office. So far, the hybrid model appears to be unique to each organization, but there are a few recurring themes. Whatever the specifics, businesses that choose to implement a hybrid model will all face some challenges.
Many leaders are choosing to go remote-first, meaning that their operations will closely mirror those of a fully remote company, with a few exceptions. Notably, most will keep their offices as space for employees to work from. Some also won’t allow the same flexibility to every employee, meaning that they may require some employees to continue coming to the office if their job requires their physical presence.Remote first will look slightly different for everyone.
Some companies are eager to get back to the office. Maybe they don’t want to lose money on unused office space, or they still aren’t sold on remote work. These businesses may set up a hybrid model that can be described as office-occasional.Some employees may even want to spend more than the required amount of time there. Regardless the workforce will be mostly local rather than distributed because employees have to come into the office occasionally.
In this model, the company offers a remote work policy and might have some employees scattered, but those who work in-office and those who don’t are differentiated by the connections and opportunities in-office folks get by working so closely with the leadership team.This approach is particularly common if the entire leadership team is in the office. The rest of the company is likely to become office-centered by default as the leadership team will generally have in-person conversation and collaboration, excluding remote workers.
