Hybrid Workplace Model

A hybrid workplace model refers to a flexible work environment that combines remote work with in-office working.

Under 1 in 5 employees that are currently working from home want to fully return to the workplace without any at-home flexibility, according to a survey carried by Medallia in august 2021.

The great next disruption is hybrid work – this is what Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index Report, boldly states and it is not hard to understand why: 92% of millennials identify flexibility as a top priority when job hunting, according to a survey published by Capability Jane Recruitment.

What is a Hybrid Workplace Model?

A hybrid workplace model or hybrid working model is one where employees can choose where they work. This can be at home, at the office, at a coffee shop, at a co-working space, etc. The word “hybrid” means that not always work in the same place. It means that they go to their companies’ offices some days on the week or month.

This working model balances the needs of individual workers (more schedule flexibility, better work-life balance) with their ability to collaborate and be productive in a shared physical space. So, hybrid work combines the best of both worlds.

Types of Hybrid Workplace Models

There are different types of hybrid workplace models. Let’s see the most popular ones.

Hybrid office working

Hybrid office working is an office-centric approach to hybrid work. You will be required to come into the office most of the time, but the company will allow you some days to work from another location.

Hybrid remote work

Contrary to hybrid office working, the hybrid remote work definition refers by a larger share of the work being performed remotely. In a hybrid work from home arrangement, some regular commutes to the office might still be expected from you, however not daily.

A hybrid remote working model ensures that you can benefit from the focus and control over how and when to work, which allows you to optimise your own work and life. From a company perspective also, the hybrid remote working model is also gaining momentum. This is because many companies have realised that employee output and results matter more than when or where they are produced. Additionally, it is shown that flexibility is a make or break factor when it comes to talent retention.

Hybrid work from home model

A hybrid work from home model (also referred to as hybrid-remote working model) implies that work is performed both remotely and on-site.

The Six Benefits of a Hybrid Workplace Model

We are choosing to discuss the benefits of a hybrid work model together with the hybrid office layout benefits:

1. Productivity
2. Global poll of talents
3. Talent retention
4. Decreased stress
5. Better quality of life
6. Higher employee satisfaction

Hybrid Workplace Advantages and Disadvantages

Although we have delved extensively into the benefits of hybrid work, it would be unrealistic to assume that hybrid work is a perfect setting and that no challenges ever arise.

Saving Costs vs. Supplementary Technology Investment

If your company doesn’t have the right infrastructure, your work environment can be truly chaotic, as it will not properly accommodate hybrid working.

High Flexibility vs. Lack of Regular Routine

When each employee enjoys a large degree of flexibility, it becomes increasingly difficult to establish predictable routines. You and your team might have a hard time not knowing when everyone will be on-site, and when remote.

Inclusion vs. Two-tier Employment System

The two-tier employee system refers to remote workers having an inferior work experience and facilities in comparison to office workers. For example, a weekly coffee chat where both remote and on-site workers can participate can set a good framework for relationship building and trust development.

Informal Interactions vs. Virtual Scheduling

A key benefit of office working is that you can always reach out to a fellow coworker when having some questions, or encountering an issue. When you find yourself in a different setting than the coworker you need, it is not as smooth to collaborate on the fly.

Hybrid Work Strategy

It is customary for companies to have standards for on-site employees. But as hybrid work becomes more customary, developing a hybrid strategy becomes necessary.

6 Questions to Redesign Work for the Hybrid World

Each employee has obtained a different outlook on work-life, and it is our firm belief that listening to employee experiences can be extremely beneficial when redesigning work for the hybrid world.

We believe that the main questions to ask when redesigning work for the hybrid world are:

1. What is the nature of the job and how much of it is dependent on a physical space?
2. Can equal access to technology and information be provided to all employees (on-site and remote)?
3. Is enough consideration being paid to culture and employee engagement?
4. Are there enough learning and development opportunities for all employees?
5. What do the employees think and feel? Where do they thrive best?
6. Should the office space be redesigned to accommodate different patterns of collaboration?

3 Challenges of Implementing a Hybrid Work Strategy

About 87% of employees want to work from home at least a day a week, according to The Pulse of the American Worker Survey. However, let’s see the challenges of implementing a hybrid work strategy into your company.

Hybrid work is built on the organizational Culture

An effective hybrid work strategy is based on firm cultural beliefs. Companies should aim to use their Culture to foster a sense of belonging among their workforce to aid them in achieving job satisfaction and engagement.

Entertainment of employees’ feedback is a virtue in a hybrid work strategy

Companies should hold the feedback of their workforce in high esteem in a hybrid work model. Both the company’s management team and the workers are partners in developing effective techniques to drive organizational growth. 

Flexibility is vital in the hybrid work model

Company and Managers should emphasize each employee’s work option preference without undermining their flexibility. 

Hybrid Work Strategy: Tips and Best Practices

We have compiled a list of tips and best practices to consider when building a hybrid work strategy:

1. Feedback from employees

Your organisation should ask you and your co-workers what you actually want.

2. Present a “Menu” of options

You should be offered some options of hybrid work, but not too many. For example, work from home and office hybrid, fully remote, hybrid-remote work, with most of the work efforts being remote.

3. Technology requirements

Your organisation has to make sure that all employees have access to the right technology – both software and hardware that powers remote working.

4. Culture is key

Your organisation cannot forget that culture plays an important part in maintaining satisfied and engaged employees. It is essential that all employees have access to the same benefits: if on-site employees have free lunch and snacks, also remote workers should receive some sort of food benefit.

5. Expectations must be clear and concise

Everyone has to be aware of what to expect: are there formalised arrangements that you have to follow? Such as signing-up whenever you decide to go to the office, or is there a pre-set hybrid work from home and office schedule and daily distribution?

Strategic Hybrid Work Technology

Hybrid work technology will enable you to make the most of your new work arrangements:

• High-fidelity video tools, allowing you to connect virtually with your team; this fosters relationships and collaboration.
• Communication Platforms, where the video tools can be put to good use.
• Access to tech support and proper procedures that can address any issues you might be facing.
• Collaboration Software: cloud storage, file sharing, online whiteboards, are just a few examples of the kinds of software tools used for tracking progress on common projects regardless of your and your team’s geographical location.
• Learning software that can enable your learning and development notwithstanding your physical location.
• People analytics that can collect the right information, helping you and your employer analyse the workflow and better optimise it.
• Employee Onboarding Software, such as introdus, makes sure new employees can be seamlessly integrated into the organisation.

How to Pre & Onboard When Using a Hybrid Workplace Model

A key component of both preboarding and onboarding processes, when using a hybrid workplace model, is portraying the company culture. And although it might seem difficult to engage someone and make them feel connected to the organisation via a display or computer, culture does not go away when the office is emptier. 

Pre & Onboarding employees when using a hybrid workplace model can be facilitated by using a Pre & Onboarding Software. Also, when using a hybrid work from home policy. Here are the advantages that it provides:

1. access to multimedia content: videos containing welcome messages from the CEO, line manager etc.;
2. ways to build meaningful relationships with your future coworkers by providing you with custom concise messaging and communication;
3. access to interactive content which showcases the company’s cultural values and norms;
4. checklists and timelines ensuring that you are on the right track;
5. e-learning modules engaging you and guiding you towards full productive independence;
6. feedback tools meant to improve the overall onboarding experience.

For example, introdus, employee onboarding software, offers simple, structured and efficient Pre & Onboarding which ensures that you become engaged with the company and its culture, objectives and vision right from the moment of signing your contract.

HYBRID WORK MODEL EXAMPLES INSIGHTS

The future of work is flexibility. The changes [in the working model] are a starting point to help us do our very best work and have fun doing it.

—Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and Alphabet.

Hybrid Work Model Examples

We have compiled a list of hybrid work model examples illustrating the different variations in implementing a hybrid work model:

By Models

1. Remote-First Model

Starting in October 2020, Dropbox decided to become a Virtual First company: remote work (outside an office) being the primary experience for all employees and the day-to-day default for individual work. In order to facilitate human interaction and connection, Dropbox decided to create Dropbox Studios, a meeting space focused on the idea of reimagined office experiences. Dropbox Studios represents a space for collaboration and community-building, rather than the classical office space, where employees would be performing solo work.

2. Occasional-Office Model

Similarly to Dropbox, Reddit has announced in October 2020 a strategy for coping with the realities of a global pandemics. In their “Evolving Reddit’s Workforce” announcement, Reddit has made the promise of allowing teams and team-members the flexibility to explore and decide their work model. The company allows for a fully flexible work-model, as the employees are free to choose between working in the office, remotely, or a combination of the two.

This new approach is supported by Reddit’s striving to create processes, workflows, and a culture, which will support all employees regardless of their preferred work models. The focus is to drive productivity and build connection, belonging, trust, and alignment.

3. Office-Prefered, Remote-Allowed Model

Through an office-prefered, remote-allowed model, although both options are on the table, the office work is designated as the primary work option. It is customary for many companies to have the core of its team on-site, while having a small share of the workforce working remote – outsourcing some functions offshore.

By Companies: Hubspot, Google, Spotify

1. Hubspot

HubSpot’s hybrid work model example is based on creating a menu of choices for their employees, so that they can choose whatever matches best their lifestyles.

• Option 1: The first option “@office” entails that the employees come to the office at least 3 times a week.
• Option 2: The second option “@flex” entails that the employees come to the office 2 or fewer days per week, the rest of their activities being performed remotely. As a result, they will not have an individual office space, instead HubSpot puts at their disposal a “hotel desk” for those days when they work on-site. The main set-up for these employees will be the work-from-home (WFH) set-up, which HubSpot will help support.
• Option 3: The last option “@home” entails almost fully remote work arrangement. HubSpot will be exclusively in charge of providing the employees with their WFH set-up in order to ensure that employees have access to a set-up that is “safe, sound, and [that] sets [them] up for success.”

2. Google

• Google chooses a 3/2 work model, which means spending approximately three days in the office and two days wherever the employees work best (home, coffee shop, co-working space etc.).
• Additionally, there is also the possibility for Google employees to apply for switching to a fully remote work model. Moreover, Google also offers a “work-from-anywhere” framework, which will allow employees to temporarily work from a location other than their main office for up to 4 weeks yearly if approved by their respective managers.
• With regards to in-office time, Google anticipates it being focused on collaboration. The company encourages teams to come together in the office at the same time.
• Google’s leadership acknowledges the need to redesign the office space, so as to be conducive to better collaboration both in person and remotely.
• Extra point: There is an expectation that once the pandemic is over, 60% of Googlers will be coming together in the office a few days a week, another 20% will be working in new office locations, and 20% will be working from home.

3. Spotify

Spotify introduced its Work From Anywhere (WFA) model, envisioned as a new way of collaborating, supposed to allow its staff to work from “wherever they do their best thinking and creating.” This is a similar approach to HubSpot’s.

Spotify clearly states that “Work isn’t something our people come to the office for, it’s something they do.”  As a result, Spotify is offering employees the flexibility to choose for themselves the location that will allow them to perform the most effective work.

Thus, Spotify employees have the opportunity to select a “Work Mode” – making a selection of geographic location, as well as choosing between full time from home, from the office, or a combination of the two.

By Schedules

A hybrid work schedule is a plan that illustrates the time to be spent both remotely and in-office.

A hybrid work schedule can have varying degrees of rigidity, meaning that some work places might require employees to draft and stick to the hybrid work schedule due to limited office capacity, or, limited available desks capacity.

Below you can find such a hybrid work schedule example. In our example, the marketing team of a company has just received the planning and hybrid work schedule for the first 4 weeks of 2022.

Get the Schedule

The hybrid work model examples included in this article illustrate that there is no such a thing as a one size fits all approach to hybrid work. 

At introdus, employee onboarding software, we firmly believe that employee well-being should be at the core of any well-functioning business.

Hybrid Office Insights

48% of 18-to-29-years-old employees acknowledged their preference for a hybrid-office model. This stands in comparison to 44% of 30-to-49-years old, and 38% of workers aged 50 and older.

—According to a McKinsey & Company Survey.

The Hybrid Office

What is a Hybrid Office?

Hybrid office working is a method of implementing the hybrid workplace model that can be seen as the best of both worlds: combining work on-site with remote work. In many cases, it allows employees a good amount of flexibility.

Let’s start with an essential step: defining the hybrid office meaning. We can define the hybrid office as a work arrangement that combines working on site, ergo in the office, and working remotely.

Elements of Work from Home and Office Hybrid

Regardless of how the work from home and office hybrid is designed and implemented, we have singled out the key elements that should not miss from a hybrid office:

1. Work Spaces

Private spaces for when employees need to perform focused work. And public spaces for collaborating, such as meeting rooms, conference halls etc.

2. Technology

Virtual collaboration technology such as conference room technology with high resolution video equipment and high fidelity microphones.

3. Meeting Spaces

Meeting spaces that can accommodate both workers on site and remote workers.

4. Training

Employees could find multiple benefits from having access to training options for adjusting to the new (virtual) reality in the workplace.

5. Mechanism for Reserving Workspaces

If your company decides to completely redesign the office, focusing on its role as a collaboration medium, rather than a host of single desk areas.

Work from Home and Office Hybrid: Key Questions to Define It

There are multiple ways to implement a hybrid office. We have identified key questions to consider when designing a work from home and office hybrid.

1. Is there some type of work that can be better performed virtually than in person?
2. What did the experience of stay at home orders reveal about meetings?
3. How can it be ensured that all workers have similar experiences, regardless of their choice of work-set up?
4. What are all the tools that need to be into place to avoid a two-tier system? It could be that on-site employees benefit from better training and mentorship opportunities.
5. Should there be some special events where all team members gather?
6. Another key question surrounds the status of the office: will it continue to service full time on-site workers, or will everyone spend at least some partial time remotely?

This question last question is particularly relevant in cases of companies that adopt “remote-first” policies. In this case, the office design is completely different from a traditional office space.

In this latter case, as the Harvard Business Review is rightfully theorising, the office becomes “a culture space, providing workers with a social anchor, facilitating connections, enabling learning, and fostering unscripted, innovative collaboration,” rather than a place exclusively linked to productivity.

Is the Hybrid Office the Future of Work?

Simply put, yes, as illustrated by the result obtained from a study from McKinsey & Company. If pre-pandemic 62% of workers preferred working on site, post-pandemic only 37% of workers show the same tendency. With regards to preferring a hybrid office arrangement, pre-pandemic only 30% of employees were favouring a hybrid office setting, while post-pandemic, the number of workers nearly doubled, reaching 52% of all workers.

Especially when it comes to younger generations, studies are finding out that Gen-Z workers are the most likely to prefer a hybrid office work arrangement, instead of a fully remote work arrangement. In fact, a McKinsey & Company study revealed that 48% of 18-to-29-years-old employees acknowledged their preference for a hybrid-office model. This stands in comparison to 44% of 30-to-49-years old, and 38% of workers aged 50 and older.

This can be linked to the benefits of on-site work, especially for relationship-building and networking.

Gen-Z most wants a foot in each world, because they are also the ones that have the least experience with the “old working model.” Eugene Ohu, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Organisational Behaviour and Human Resource Management, highlights: “One reason Gen-Z prefers hybrid work is because they are at a stage of discovery: many of them are still trying to get to know themselves, form an identity, so they’re more open to explore more options, which is easier when you’re moving around rather than being tied down to one thing. Hybrid work is therefore a typical representation of that discovery.”

To conclude, there is no magic formula for successfully designing a hybrid office. But, regardless of how the hybrid office is to be implemented, it is clear that companies have to allow for trial and error and to be willing to listen to the employee experiences.

At introdus we strive to offer you a great employee experience at the beginning of your new career in a company. You can step right into a hybrid office model after being Pre & Onboarded with the introdus platform.

Culture and the Remote Hybrid Team

A hybrid team is a workforce grouping composed of employees that either work on-premise, or remotely, or a combination of both in a more or less structured manner.

A recent global Slack survey found out that 4 out of 5 the most frequently cited challenges associated with remote work, pertain to building and maintaining strong work relationships. The only top 5 challenge not linked to relationship building is having a decent internet connection. “It’s not that people like their commute; it’s just that people don’t want to miss out,” highlights GitLab’s co-founder and CEO, Sid Sijbrandij.

Many companies are becoming more aware of this fact and are actively working to enhance access to culture and the social dimension of work when being remote.

Concluding Remarks: The Hybrid Workplace Model Is Here to Stay

Although the hybrid workforce model started as a transitory work environment, it has slowly but steady become the new normal for many businesses. Employees value their newly found flexibility.

According to Forbes, for many employees, the hybrid-model-workplace has reignited their passion, happiness and fulfillment from their work. Insights from a study carried out by The Economist Intelligence Unit support the same idea: knowledge workers are more focused at home and just as engaged as before. Dropbox’s internal surveys revealed that most employees declare being able to be productive at home (nearly 90%) and not wanting to return to a rigid five-day in-office workweek.

So any company should be prepared to pre & onboard employees remotely, in order to make them feel engaged with the company notwithstanding the physical distance caused by a remote Pre & Onboarding process.

For further reading we also recommend reading the article on a hybrid work model by Toptal