Hybrid Working: The Worst of Both Worlds?

With the Covid hysteria pretty much entirely subsided, the return to office stage has been underway for some time now. As many people predicted, hybrid working seems to be winning the battle to be the new normal. In theory, this is a pretty decent compromise. Hybrid working combines elements of both remote and in-office work, so arguably this caters to both camps. However, the question I have to ask is: does it offer us the best of both worlds, or the worst? From what I have seen so far, it’s very often the latter.

Location, Location, Location

As someone who adopted remote working several years before Covid, I can confidently say that the absolute best thing about it is the freedom. With my employee hat on, it gives me the freedom to live and work anywhere I choose in the world. With my employer hat on, it gives me the freedom to source talent from anywhere in the world. Without being bound by the constraints of physical proximity to the office, everyone quite literally has a whole world of options. This flexibility can lead to a better work-life balance, reduced living costs, and increased overall satisfaction for employees.

However, hybrid working models require employees to come into the office at least once or twice a week, which completely negates this benefit. If you have to come into the office regularly, you need to live reasonably close to that office. This limitation not only restricts the options for employees seeking affordable housing or a more desirable lifestyle, it also affects the talent management options of companies, as they are unable to tap into a global talent pool unrestricted by geographical boundaries. As a result of this, the biggest positive of remote working - for both employers and employees - just doesn’t carry over to hybrid.

Lack of Companionship and Social Interaction

There are two dominant implementations of hybrid, each with their own problems. The most common seems to be a flexible hybrid arrangement that sees employees asked to work some days in the office each week, and some days at home, but they can choose which days. This is presumably more common than having set in office days, because it allows for a down-sized office. But it also pretty much eradicates the biggest benefit of going to the office in the first place.

Again, as someone that has been remote working a long time now, I can say that the biggest thing I miss about the office is the companionship and sense of shared endeavour. I have come to look back on the little office interactions that seemed trivial at the time with genuine nostalgia. The missed companionship and camaraderie that comes with daily face-to-face interactions with colleagues is something that frequently makes me consider a return to the city to set up a physical home for the business. As I touched on some time ago, the social bonds we build at work help foster collaboration, creativity, and a sense of belonging that is difficult to replicate in a remote work environment. I think by now, even the most hardened remote work advocates would have to concede that being in the office with the people you work with does provide something extra that just can’t be delivered over a screen.

The flexible hybrid work model doesn’t really deliver this social connection. The social element of work is fragmented, as employees don’t overlap with their colleagues on their chosen in-office days. Consequently, many people no longer fully commit to the social aspect of work. What I’ve observed is that the reduction of in office time has lead to a kind of cultural tipping point for many offices. It’s as if the critical mass of socially engaged people necessary for a company community to form is no longer being reached - not enough people want to socialise to attract more people to want to socialise. It’s a self-perpetuating problem, where the flexible hybrid model makes the days where you do go into the office worse by stripping out the things that used to make them fun, beneficial, or at the very least tolerable. And the worse they get, the less people want to be there, and the worse they get still.

Implicit Message of a Shortened Work Week

One solution to this problem is to operate a less flexible hybrid model. Here, instead of allowing workers to choose the days they spend in the office, there are designated in-office days. The most common schedule I’ve seen is Tuesday - Thursday in office, Monday & Friday at home (the data seems to show these are the days people are choosing when left to their own devices anyway). However, what I’ve noticed here is that when people are placed on this schedule, they’re often inferring that their working week has been shortened. For a lot of people, they’ve really just been given two more days off. The in-office days are seen as a necessary chore, and the at home days are pretty much their own. As someone who has always worked unconventional hours, it’s telling how often I can now see friends during the day on a Friday or Monday, compared to how often I could before.

There’s a reasonable argument to be made that it might be a good thing for everyone to have a shorter working week, and that perhaps this is a better result, even if it isn’t the intended one. However, the problem I see with this is that we’re giving people just enough space to disengage from their work, but not enough that they’re actually free of it. I’m not convinced they’re really benefiting from it. There’s absolutely no evidence to suggest that having a part-time job you sort of care about is more beneficial to your well-being or mental health than having a full-time job you actually enjoy and that brings you satisfaction.

Inconsistent Talent Intelligence

No matter how much we want to believe otherwise, working in the same physical location as someone else enables us to get to know them better. The problem with hybrid working is that everyone ends up with a different degree of contact to the people they work with. This can create gaps in understanding, and allow misconceptions to build. Someone potentially excellent might fly under the radar, someone not so great might manage to fool enough people for long enough to do some real damage. I’m convinced that businesses that implement hybrid models that also neglect their talent mapping will frequently make bad staffing decisions, as the less scrupulous employees find ways to exploit the hiding places, and the talented employees who don’t want to play games become frustrated. Accurately assessing and developing our talent is a challenging enough process to begin with; adding a random in-office schedule into the mix makes it that much harder.

Conclusion

While the hybrid work model may seem like the perfect compromise between remote and office work, it is not without drawbacks. I don’t claim to have an answer. The genie is very much out of the bottle. But I do think there’s an element of sitting on the fence to hybrid working that we might need to address. I know many business leaders who without doubt would much prefer they go back to a fully in office model, and I know some who have found remote working liberating and would probably like to embrace it fully. I think of lot of business would benefit from making a decision either way, and just going with it.

A phrase about a pot, and whether we should get off it or not comes to mind.