MAKINGHYBRIDWORKHUMANWRITTEN BY

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ABOUT THE RESEARCH
Making hybrid work human is a multiphased research programme, conductedby Economist Impact and sponsored by
Google Workspace, studying emerging
models of work. This summary brief is thefirst of a series of outputs from this project,
and uses insights obtained through desk
research and expert interviews to define
hybrid work, explore current trends throughthe lens of history, and offer preliminary
findings and recommendations for businesses
to harness the opportunities of hybrid work
while minimising risks. Future outputs fromthis project will elaborate on this brief,
exploring the sustainable future of hybrid
work in more depth.
We would like to thank the following
experts for their time and insights:• Ada Choi, head of occupier research,
APAC, and head of data intelligenceand management, APAC, CBRE, andManish Kashyap, global president,
advisory and transaction services, CBRE• Anne-Laure Fayard, ERA chaired professor
in social innovation, NOVA School ofBusiness and Economics• Brian Kropp, group vice president
and chief of HR research, Gartner• David Ulrich, Rensis Likert Professor,
Ross School of Business, University ofMichigan; partner, The RBL Group• Harriet Molyneaux, managing director,
HSM Advisory• Jodi Oakman, associate professorof ergonomics, safety and health,
La Trobe University• Prithwiraj Choudhury, associate professorof technology and management,
Harvard Business School• Dr. Sandhya Karpe, senior researchadvisor–human capital centre,
The Conference Board of Asia

The summary brief was produced by ateam of in-house researchers, writers,
editors and designers, including:
Yuxin Lin, project manager
Wade Islan, lead researcher
Lavanya Sayal, researcher
Sudhir Vadaketh, writer
Amanda Simms, editor
Marina da Silva, graphic designer
Economist Impact bears sole responsibility
for the content of this report. The findings
and views expressed herein do not necessarilyreflect the views of our sponsor, partners orinterviewed experts.

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INTRODUCTION
Over the past eighteen months, the world’s
understanding of the nature of work haschanged dramatically. Work-from-home(WFH) practices alongside other flexible
work arrangements have spread acrossthe world, largely due to social restrictions
implemented by countries globally inresponse to the covid-19 pandemic.1
Now, as more countries begin to recognise
covid-19 as an endemic disease, optimism
has been rising about lifting restrictions andan imminent return to economic normality.2
However, it appears as if the nature of work
itself—the way we perform it—might neverreturn to its pre-covid state. Many believethat a hybrid model of in-person and remote
working is here to stay, despite consistently
vague definitions of the term “hybrid work”
and uncertainty about the relative benefits ofeach specific model.3 Organisations appear
eager to leverage the benefits of remote work,
such as tapping into a broad, diverse talentpool, even as they worry about losing thebenefits of in-person, collaborative work.4

Both the hopes and worries aroundhybrid work are valid, as demonstrated
by previous flexible work adoptions.
Indeed, hybrid work is not new. It can betraced back to the 1960s (and arguably
earlier) and has taken on various forms.5
The uneven adoption (and occasional
unwinding) of hybrid work arrangements
over the past sixty years suggests benefits
for employers and employees, but alsorisks and potential downsides.6
Whether organisations can capture the bestof both worlds—remote and in-person—
remains to be seen. These outcomes will be
determined to a large extent by how they
design and implement their hybrid models.
Within this context, Economist Impact,sponsored by Google Workspace, isconducting a multi-phase research
programme to assess the prospects forhybrid work around the world. By combining
a literature review,expert interviews anda global survey, Economist Impact is aiming
to identify effective practices, sidestep
avoidable mistakes and ultimately develop
recommendations for creating humancentred hybrid work models thatwill best serve organisations, employees
and society at large over the long term.
This executive summary, the opening pieceof this programme, is focused on defining
hybrid work, contextualising current trends
in terms of the history of work, presenting
a mission for the research to come, andoffering the earliest findings.

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WHAT ISHYBRID WORK?
Hybrid work refers to a spectrum of flexible
work arrangements in which an employee’s
work location and/or hours are not strictly
standardised.

then at the other end of the spectrum
is anywhere around the world at any time.
So no restricted time or location. A hybrid
is anything that sits in the middle of that.”

Conventional wisdom suggests that hybrid
work pertains only to location—if an individualis working in-person at the office, factory orsome other place. This emphasis on location
is evident in recent reports published by theInternational Labor Organisation and theWorld Economic Forum.7,8,9

Brian Kropp, vice president at Gartner, aresearch and advisory firm, shares a similar
view: “Hybrid work is not just about different
locations, but also different timings anddifferent schedules.”Yet a few experts interviewed in this study stressthat the time element is just as important—whether or not work hours are flexible.
Harriet Molyneaux, managing director at HSM
Advisory, a future-of-work consultancy, describes
the time-location work spectrum: “[At] one endof the spectrum is everyone in the office, nine
till five, so both restricted time and location. And

In short, a hybrid worker’s locationand hours must be neither completely
fixed nor completely flexible. A freelance
programmer who can code by the beachwith complete location and time flexibility
is not a hybrid worker.
We therefore define hybrid work as
anything between full in-person workwith limited time flexibility and full remote
work with complete time flexibility.

Figure. What is hybrid?

Full remote andcomplete time flexibility

Full in-person andcomplete time flexibility

HYBRID

Full in-person andno time flexibility

Full remote andno time flexibility

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THE LONGHISTORY
OF “NEW”
APPROACHESTO WORKTHE SHARE OF
THE US LABOURFORCE WORKINGAT HOME FOR AT
LEAST ONE DAY AWEEK INCREASEDFROM 7.0% IN
1997 TO 9.5% IN

Over the past sixty years firms in Europe,
the US, Japan and elsewhere haveexperimented with hybrid work,
prompted by cost-cutting measures andfacilitated by technological advances.

in 1997 to 9.5% in 2010.16 Meanwhile, a 2014
study found that almost half of the managers
surveyed at mid-sized manufacturing firms in
the US, the UK and Germany were allowed to
WFH during normal hours.17

Modern hybrid work combines elements oftime- and location-flexible work models that
had their genesis in the 1900s. Time-flexible
work models, which pre-date location-flexible
ones, first emerged during World War II, when
workers producing goods, food and militaryequipment for the army were allowed to workin shifts rather than continuously. The aim was
to maintain a steady supply throughout thewar. More generally, time-flexible work models
started gaining popularity in Europe and the
US in the late 1960s.10

Evidence from these pre-covid experiments inhybrid work demonstrates both the benefits
and challenges for all-remote, location-flexible
and time-flexible models.

Yet it was only in the 1970s-80s that remote
work took off in the US, arguably beginning in
the form of WFH policies. The adoption was
driven largely by rising commuting costs (inturn due to soaring gasoline prices, sparked by
the 1970s energy crisis) and facilitated by the
expansion of landlines, personal computersand other technologies.11 Hybrid work began toseep into pockets of corporate life in Japan, theUK, Europe and elsewhere.12,13
By 1994 organisations such as AT&T and IBM,eyeing huge potential real-estate savings,
had started pioneering alternative workplacemodels—a combination of non-traditional
work practices, settings and locations that werebeginning to supplement traditional offices.
Enabled by advancing technologies suchas the internet, digital devices and cloudcomputing, the adoption of remote work,often with a hybrid approach, increased
throughout the 2000s and 2010s.14 This trend
was further accelerated by the need to comply
with equal opportunity employment policies,
such as those for individuals with disabilities.15
This acceleration is evident in the data. The
share of the US labour force working at home
for at least one day a week increased from 7.0%

Benefits to many organisations include
operational cost savings, such as from thereduced need for office space and improved
human resource outcomes. Organisations haveaccess to a wider talent pool, partly because
they can use these policies to retain older andmore experienced employees.18 Employees
also tend to be more motivated by remote
work policies and take fewer sick days. Workers
enjoy greater autonomy, flexibility and in somecases better work-life balance and well-beingfrom hybrid models.19 Society, meanwhile,
benefits through a reduced carbon footprint(from less commuting) and a higher labourforce participation rate, as more people,
including caregivers and individuals withdisabilities, can work.20
Downsides of past hybrid work models
to organisations include the need forinvestment in telecommunication equipment
and IT security; resistance by some workers
to this equipment; and communication
challenges (both technological andinterpersonal) and the attendant coordinationand collaboration difficulties. Workers also
had to contend with heightened distrust
between managers and employees.21
Because of these challenges, some firms did
not enjoy (the hoped-for) productivity boosts
from hybrid work models, which were instead
seen as undermining innovation. Some workers
suffered too.22,23 When WFH policies have been
firm-dictated rather than employee-driven,
employee quality of life has typically declined
rather than improved. This has been especiallytrue of time-flexible models.24

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PANDEMICFORCED HYBRIDACCELERATION
Pandemic restrictions have helped improve ourunderstanding of hybrid work, jump-starting
its adoption by societies, organisations andindividuals everywhere.

52%

OF WORKERSWOULD PREFERA MORE FLEXIBLEWORKING MODEL
POST-PANDEMIC—
COMPARED WITH
30% PRE-PANDEMIC

The covid-19 pandemic marks a turning point
in hybrid work’s evolution. According to asurvey carried out by the US Census Bureau
in August 2020—more than a third of U.S.
households reported working from homemore frequently than before the pandemic.25
A global employee survey conducted by
McKinsey & Company in December 2020 andJanuary 2021 also revealed that 52% of workers
would prefer a more flexible working model
post-pandemic—compared with 30% prepandemic.26 Hybrid work has therefore shiftedfrom the realm of management philosophy
and occasional practice into the daily lived
experience of people globally.
There are at least three reasons why this time,
unlike at any other during the past fifty years,
this shift is likely to be permanent.
First, the pandemic necessitatedexperimentation with remote work by
millions of individuals and organisations.
Basic decision theory predicts thatcompulsory experimentation with newmodels of work will have persistent effects
even after the new models are no longer
strictly necessary, as decision-makers reoptimise working arrangements in lightof newly gleaned information. Improved
technology, from video conferencing anddigital collaboration software to accessible
hardware like high-resolution cameras,
have made this experimentation possible.27
Second, workers have invested time andmoney into home equipment to facilitate
remote work. In the US, for instance, theaverage worker spent 15 hours and $561—
cumulatively equivalent to 0.7% of annual
GDP—in gearing up their homes, according
to data from the Survey of Working
Arrangements and Attitudes.28 This meansthat the technological gap between
home and office set-ups has, on average,
narrowed considerably.

Third, the pandemic has altered cultural
attitudes in ways that support a shift to hybrid
work, increasing organisational and employee
support for new work models. A Pew ResearchCenter survey conducted in the US in October
2020 found that, of workers who say that theirjob responsibilities can mainly be done from
home, only 20% were working from home all ormost of the time before the pandemic; but by
October 2020, 71% were. Moreover, over half say
that, given a choice, they would want to keep
working from home even after the pandemic.29
There are now greater incentives, financial andotherwise, for employees to engage in hybrid
work. Researchers had hitherto observed aninverse relationship between wage rates andtime spent working remotely: all else being
equal, the greater the share of work being done
remotely, the lower the employee’s wage rate.30
Now, given the covid-inspired enthusiasm forhybrid work, interviewees expect this gap toclose, as more employees perform hybrid workwith the additional support of their employers.
All this reflects a seminal mindset shift in theconcept of hybrid work. Previous incarnations
always positioned the office as the “true” placeof work, around which remote or flexible
employees would have had to revolve. That
is no longer the case. Many employees today
operate with a “hybrid-first” mindset. The
office has lost some of its natural centrality inthese contemporary hybrid work models.31
Given the better-than-expected remote work
experiences and the reduced stigma attachedto hybrid work, there is now greater societal
acceptance.32 Indeed, what was once seenas the privilege of a few—the ability to havea flexible work location and hours—is now
considered by many as a right. Organisations
that do not pro-actively extend such flexibility
may be perceived negatively by workers.33

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WHAT’SDIFFERENT
THIS TIME?
Never has hybrid work been adopted atsuch scale across industries, organisations,job functions and employees. Potential risks
include the loss of human connection, andthreats to equity and fairness in the workplace.
Because the potential for hybrid work
differs significantly depending on occupation,
job scope, industry and country, there isalready a proliferation of different hybrid
work models being used today; we expect
this diversity to grow.
Proponents of hybrid work believe it canharness the best from all the different
models of work. It can offer the benefitsof remote work for organisations andemployees, such as cost savings and autonomy,
respectively, while maintaining the advantagesof in-person work, such as collaboration andsocial interaction.34 By incorporating timeflexible or even role-flexible approaches, suchas part-time with full benefits, hybrid work
will offer quality-of-life improvements for
employees.35 All this, proponents believe,
will lead to productivity gains.
Optimism around hybrid work must be
tempered with an understanding of thepotential challenges to contemporary hybrid
work, which can be substantially more serious
than those of the past.
The first set of challenges revolve aroundthe loss of human connection—the factthat many interactions are moving from thephysical to the virtual realm.

Fewer traditional office interactions—suchas before and after meeting walks; coffee
breaks; water cooler discussions; and inperson collaboration with managers andteams—can cause employees to feel sociallyand professionally isolated, as they perceive
themselves as disconnected from colleagues
and the company itself.36
A corollary of this is collaboration andcoordination failure.37 Widespread hybrid
work will necessarily involve communication
channels of varying quality and consistency.
This raises some fundamental questions about
how employees will work together. How, forinstance, should employees in the office, who
can share a meeting room, best interact as agroup with their remote colleagues?
Which employees need to be working at
the same time, and for how long must they
overlap? These and other questions will haveto be suitably addressed by organisations
before widespread hybrid work can be
implemented successfully.
The second set of challenges involve equity
issues. Consider, firstly, that even the ability
to work remotely is a privilege. Some tasks
require physical presence. Remote work
potential for certain jobs (such as caregiving,retail services and essential IT services
requiring specialised fixed equipment) is
non-existent.38,39 Unfortunately, a significant
number of these jobs are filled by workers fromsocio-economically disadvantaged groups(in relation to the overall workforce). Hybrid
work has thus far benefited primarily workers
in higher education and income brackets andthis will likely continue.
For instance, the Pew Research Center’s surveyof workers in the US in October 2020 foundthat while 62% of workers with a bachelor’s
degree or higher could do their work from
home, only 23% of those without a four-year
university degree could. Similarly, while amajority of upper-income workers can dotheir work from home, most lower- andmiddle-income workers cannot.40
Related to the disparity in education andincome levels is unequal access to technology
and suitable home office set-ups.41 Modern
technology offers unparalleled flexibility
for workers, who have more options than

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ever when it comes to where and when theywork. However, this could place those withlimited ability to use or access appropriatetechnological tools at a disadvantage.
Similarly, limited access to WFH spaces and poorinternet connectivity in developing countries—aswell as in some rural locations in developed
countries—can severely impact performance andproductivity of workers in those areas.42
According to Sandhya Karpe, senior researchadvisor at The Conference Board, working fromhome is often challenging for many in Asia
because of poor connectivity and/or confined,shared living spaces. “Multigenerational family
structures are common in some countries
where you’re often cohabitating with parents,
siblings, grandparents and/or in-laws.” These“social and cultural factors”, she says, could
result in an uneven playing field for employees
who are now working out of their homes.

“IF COMMUNICATIONCHANNELS AREDISTORTED, IF YOURMANAGER DOESN’T
TRUST YOU, IT’S REALLYSTRESSFUL BECAUSEYOU’RE TRYING TOGUESS WHAT YOU
MIGHT NEED TO DO
TO SATISFY THEM.”
Jodi Oakman, an associate
professor of ergonomics, health& safety at La Trope University

Remote work experiments during the
pandemic have also brought to lightintergenerational disparities with respect
to hybrid models. Senior and establishedemployees are reportedly doing better
compared with younger workers and newhires. Younger employees have reported
feeling more stressed, less motivated, lessproductive and more isolated. They are
seemingly more affected by the loss of informal
knowledge sharing, networking opportunities
and passive learning moments.43,44
Yet older employees also face their own
challenges. They are usually less techsavvy, which can impact their remote work
productivity, especially in the absence ofdigital and tech training.45
In terms of gender equity, although multiple
experts Economist Impact interviewed
worried about the possibility of hybrid work
exacerbating existing gender gaps, the impact
of hybrid work (rather than fully-remote work)on gender equity remains unclear. On the
one hand, working remotely can potentiallyallow those with household responsibilities tobecome more productive, by allowing themto spread out their housework across the day
and ultimately get more personal time.46 On
the other hand, thanks to gender norms andsocietal expectations, greater work flexibility
for women has historically often translated
into increased time spent on caregiving andhousehold responsibilities, while increased
flexibility for men has led to greater productivity
and improved work-life balance.47,48
The third and final set of challenges concerns
fairness. Without a consistent and clear

corporate culture (and sufficient training),
hybrid models risk creating performance gaps
between employees more commonly in theoffice versus those mostly outside. Without
appropriate safeguards, frequent in-person
workers may gain advantages over others interms of visibility and recognition, as well as
access to information and resources.49
Hybrid models also threaten compensation
fairness. Unfairness can result from theabsence of support plans or additional
compensation structures for workers who
cannot be granted the same degree of
flexibility as other colleagues.50 The practice of“equal pay” may also lead to de facto unfairness
under hybrid work models due to disparities in
the costs of living between employees working
from different locations.51 Some argue, forexample, that employees living in low-costcities and towns should be paid less.
The challenges above pose a serious
threat to employees and organisations.
For employees, the lack of workplaceconnections can lead to extreme isolation, stressand anxiety, ultimately impacting employee
mental health and physical well-being. In hybrid
models, as with fully remote arrangements, it
can be difficult to foster social connections atwork, especially if employees rarely interact
with the same coworkers in the office. Hybrid
work models can also perpetuate the “alwayson” mentality of remote work. This can lead tosevere burnout or team dysfunction.52
All this can take a toll on a worker’s health,according to Jodi Oakman, an associate
professor of ergonomics, safety and health at
La Trobe University. “If clear communication
channels are not established, if your manager
doesn’t trust you, it’s really stressful because
you’re trying to guess what you might need to
do to undertake your job. These issues can leadto the development of neck or back pain orsome other musculoskeletal pain.”
For organisations, scattered communication
channels and inequitable access to resourcesand opportunities can undermine coordination,
collaboration and efficiency, ultimately
damaging organisations’ overall productivity
and affecting their financial bottom lines.
Another consistent problem with hybridarrangements is the difficulty in fostering astrong corporate culture.53 Part of this problem
is the dichotomy of cultures in both workplaces.
It’s neither remote nor onsite—but rather
somewhere between.54 This, coupled withchallenges around accountability, fairness,
equity and impaired human connections, canthreaten the very fabric of the organisation’s
culture and existence.

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SUCCESSACHIEVABLETHOUGH NOTGUARANTEED
The success of hybrid work models depends
on an organisation’s flexibility, the agency itaffords its employees and its management’s
cultural adaptability.
Will organisations be able to reap the
benefits of hybrid work? Experts interviewed
for this programme actually expect manyorganisations to fail at hybrid work or, at thevery least, tinker relentlessly before finding anapproach that works for them.
However, through thoughtful design of
their hybrid work models, organisations canposition themselves for success. While specific,
granular recommendations will be developed
only in the following phases of this programme,
Economist Impact has identified some general
guidelines in this first phase.

Given the variety of possible arrangements
across the hybrid work spectrum, it isimportant for organisations to approach
implementation the same way they would new
product development: with flexibility, openmindedness, a holistic view of individuals andtheir teams, and a willingness to constantly
iterate. Interviewees expect current hybrid
work models to evolve even over the next year.
Ms Molyneaux at HSM Advisory says she willbe “enormously surprised” if any of the current
hybrid work models being implemented now(“including ours, by the way”) look exactly thesame in twelve months’ time.
Moreover, hybrid work models should bebased on employee preferences and prioritise
employee-driven flexibility. For instance,
because time flexibility is more feasible thanlocation flexibility for many workers—such as“frontline workers” who must perform theirjobs in-person or many contract workers—it
is important for employers to not only think
about the “where” and the “when” of hybrid
work, but also the “how” (for instance, is itreally necessary for individuals to overlap work
schedules). Interviewees expect hybrid models
that let employees shape their own choices
regarding where and when they work will be
more successful in the long run and are more
likely to be sustainable versus those that lean
towards top-down mandates on flexibility.
Culture and management styles mustreflect the new hybrid environment. Firms
that operate with a traditional office-based
mindset or blindly combine remote and inperson work without considering the requisiteorganisational and operational changes risk
failing in their attempts at hybrid work. “Wecannot take the old set of processes, apply
them to hybrid and expect them to work,” says
Prithwiraj Choudhury, associate professor oftechnology and operations management at
Harvard Business School, “We need to rethinkbasic management practices—how peoplesocialize, how information is shared, and how
communication is conducted—in the context
of hybrid work.”

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CONCLUSION
This ongoing hybrid work revolution is, at therisk of hubris, probably unlike any other in our
lifetimes. Everything from the way we commuteto the way we interact with others—near andfar, colleagues and strangers alike—is changing.
All this will have an indelible impact on
our lives. Among other things, our built
environment will change, as neighbourhoods,
cities and regions adapt to suburban WFH
and to new daily commuting patterns.
While we’re aware that change is occurring,the contours of it are still unclear. As
our interviewees stress, one of themost important qualities that will helporganisations and workers navigate thehybrid work revolution is adaptability.

This is because our understanding of hybrid
work is still in its infancy.
In 1920 Max Weber, a German sociologist,
said that the separation of the worker’s
place of work from their home had “extraordinarily
far-reaching” consequences. A century later, theshift of work back to a home (or hybrid) setting will
similarly have a profound impact on organisations,workers and societies across the world. Those who
remain nimble and open-minded are the ones
most likely to benefit from it.
Over the coming months, Economist Impact
will be exploring all these issues in greater
depth through a series of expert blogs, a global
survey and finally a briefing paper that will tie
the whole research programme together. Stay
tuned—from wherever you’re working.

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Bloom, N. (2021, June). Hybrid is the future of work | SIEPR. Stanford
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1

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