What is Hybrid Working?
At half nine, you sit down at your kitchen table to catch up on emails. At 11, you set off to meet your team for a brainstorming session in a breakout space, grab some lunch together in a nearby café, then settle down at your desk for a Teams call. Your manager sits beside you, on hand to answer any questions and bounce ideas around with.
Nearby teams chatter away, and without realising, you get up to speed with what’s happening across the wider department. Throughout the week, you continue to alternate between team days in the office; meeting clients in coworking spaces; and hunkering down at home in between family commitments.
What is the hybrid working model? And what are its benefits?
Definitions of hybrid working are wide and varied. The term is often confused with dynamic working (which mainly focuses on output rather than hours clocked) or agile working (which focuses on moving between different environments within the office, from phone booths through to standing desks).
The hybrid working model gives employees the freedom to work wherever they’re most productive. Weeks are usually split between home and the office, or any equivalent workspace, such as a café, a close-to-home office space or a central HQ.
For businesses, it makes both environmental and commercial sense for workers to find the right place for the task at hand, feel empowered to do their job well, and follow a working schedule that fits in with their lives.
How to implement a hybrid working model
Though it seems simple enough to implement hybrid working, putting it into practice involves a lot of planning. The logistics are incredibly challenging, especially when you’re aligning your plans to business objectives, employee preferences, company culture and office plans.
When mapping it out, it’s better to think of hybrid working as a spectrum made up of two moving parts: the amount of collaboration you want across your business, and your workers’ abilities to work virtually.
Writing in (Y)OUR SPACE, Joanna Dixon explains businesses need to consider four elements: the tasks and activities your organisation carries out; the environments that support these activities; the key working relationships – and who they exist between; and the culture and purpose of your business, including what motivates your employees.
Crucially, different roles will need different setups, so it’s worth profiling employees to understand who has a functional need to be in the office, and for whom location is less important.
Hybrid Working Isn't Always the Right Fit
While hybrid working has become a popular model for many businesses, it can also create challenges that impact productivity, culture and workplace efficiency. With employees splitting their time between home and the office, organisations may find it harder to foster collaboration, maintain a strong company culture and ensure everyone feels equally connected to the business.
Hybrid working can also make office planning more complex. Businesses often struggle to balance fluctuating attendance levels, resulting in underused space on some days and overcrowding on others. This can make it difficult to determine the right amount of office space, meeting rooms and collaboration areas needed to support employees effectively.
For some organisations, these challenges can signal the need for a workspace rethink. A well-designed office that prioritises collaboration, flexibility and employee experience can help maximise the benefits of hybrid working while minimising its drawbacks.
It’s a huge learning curve, and unfortunately, you might not truly know what works until you’ve trialled it. For businesses who are at a crossroads, flexible office space certainly goes some way in remedying that uncertainty.”
