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This article will explore the different hybrid work models, their advantages and disadvantages, and how companies balance flexibility with collaboration and team cohesion.

If there is one positive thing that came out of the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s learning that there can be other ways to do things efficiently without sticking to the traditional way we know. Hybrid work models are a perfect example of this. While the digital nature of some unconventional companies has allowed them to provide remote work flexibility, this setup has been largely a dream rather than a reality for most employers before the pandemic.

When the global health crisis lifted, hybrid work models were born. A study conducted by the video conferencing platform Zoom, on 600 IT and C-suite leaders and 1,900 workers, found that 60% of leaders in North America favor the hybrid setup. Only 27% prefer in-office work and only 13% champion a fully remote environment. Seventy-five percent of leaders surveyed also said they plan to adjust their work arrangements within two years.

Types of Hybrid Work Models

A hybrid work model often involves breaking up a week, allowing employees to work in the office some days and remotely the rest of the week. Some companies take it further by breaking up the month and assigning alternate remote work weeks for different teams or employees. 

If you’re just about to enter the workforce or considering a career shift, it’s important to be familiar with the work model of your target company before you even create a resume from the best resume builders. 

The arrangement depends on the company’s agreement with their workers, which considers the employee’s role, responsibility, and preference. The main difference between this model and a fully remote work environment is that it gives the employees the best of both worlds while keeping the reins on the team.

Hybrid work models will benefit companies that don’t want to or cannot go 100% remote because of the nature of their business. These can also be a good testing ground for companies intending to transition into fully remote work. 

Whatever employers want, the key is to have a work arrangement that enhances employee performance and engagement and complements their personal life and career goals. With the help of a resume writing service, job seekers can find a way to highlight their preferred hybrid work models in their wish list of company perks or look for them in job postings. 

Also read: How to work from home while maintaining super high productivity?

The common hybrid work models are as below:

Office-first Hybrid Work Model

This model requires workers to be onsite most of the time. They are allowed a few days of remote work during a pay period, but they must be in the office most days. Often, employees are allowed only one day a week for remote work, or an equivalent of that allocation, such as 4 days a month.

This model is the closest type to the pre-pandemic work structure in most companies. Employers implementing this model believe that in-office collaboration is more valuable for the business and encourages better performance than offsite work.

Benefits:

• Easy collaboration among departments and teams
• Efficient communication
• Good teamwork
• Quick inspiration and output from in-person meetings
• Employee socialization, which can strengthen work culture
• Physical connection to the office community (including clients)

Downsides:

• Lack of or limited flexibility, which leads to employee dissatisfaction
• Bad work-life balance
• High commuting costs
• Long commute times, which prevent an early start at work
• High workplace expenses
• More requests for personal time off or sick days
• Employee’s physical presence in the office is unnecessary

Fixed Hybrid Work Model

This model slightly diverts from the office-first hybrid model in that workers are given more flexibility to work remotely. However, the schedule is still at the company’s discretion. Remote work for teams and individuals follows an agreed-upon schedule based on the requirements of their projects and roles. This type of model is also referred to as a team-designated hybrid work model.

Companies implementing this work model retain a level of control over their workers’ in-office presence. Teams also get to be together on-site for meetings and project collaboration, making processes more efficient and responses to queries more immediate.

Benefits:

• Efficient coordination
• Minimal conflicts in scheduling shifts or ensuring a balance in onsite manpower
• Seamless management for team leads
• Better productivity and performance tracking
• Lower commuting costs
• Manageable work expenses in the office
• More acceptance of various working styles

Downsides:

• Limited flexibility
• Low employee satisfaction
• More rifts between teams
• Not much connection between remote and in-person employees
• Needs intentional communication from senior management
• Poor focus
• Requires a bigger range of employee benefits and management styles

Flexible Hybrid Work Model

This work schedule contrasts the office-first hybrid model and improves on the fixed hybrid setting in that the workers are given the decision to choose which days they will work onsite and which days they will devote to remote work. Employees can opt to work from home or other remote places if they want less distraction from officemates to focus on projects or urgent tasks. In fact, they can design their hybrid schedules themselves and choose the days they want to work remotely.

Benefits:

• Low commuting costs
• High employee morale and well-being 
• High employee satisfaction and engagement
• More trust between management and employee, promoting autonomy
• Better potential for employee retention
• Attracting more job applications, making recruitment easy

Downsides:

• Performance issues and missed team goals
• Not very efficient team communication
• Unused or underutilized office spaces and equipment
• Need for more engagement activities to promote socialization and team building
• More effort on the side of the employee to build trust
• Rise of team silos, not good for company cohesiveness

Remote-first Hybrid Work Model

This type of hybrid model is closer to a 100% remote work setup. The only difference is that employees are still required to go to a physical location on designated days for occasional collaborative activities like internal meetings, training sessions, team-building activities, and client events. 

Benefits:

• The best proposition for work-life balance and well-being
• Improved employee productivity
• High employee satisfaction
• High flexibility
• Lower overhead costs for the employer
• Low commuting costs
• Low employee expenses
• Potential to expand worker pool from a wider range of locations
• Improved trust between employer and employee
• Easier recruitment and more attractive prospects for jobseekers
• Streamlined employee benefits and expectations
• Higher employee retention

Downsides:

• Lack of or no interaction among employees
• Less or no communication within or between teams
• Remote team members working in silos
• Potential or more frequent miscommunication
• Lack of team bonding
• More difficult employee engagement because of the remote setup
• High overhead costs for offices with extensive facilities that are now unused
• Poor onboarding and in-office experience for new hires
• Employee decline often unnoticed
• High employee burnout and silent quitting

Apart from these four main models, two other setups appear to be modifications of the fixed hybrid work model based on feedback from employees. In both cases, it’s the company who assigns the schedule.

Split-week Hybrid Work Model

As the name implies, this work model slashes the week into onsite and offsite days. Work schedules are also team-based, so employee presence depends on the team. Interdepartmental work and collaboration will have to adjust to individual team schedules, and some teams will not be in the office together. While workers don’t have an entire week to build their workload on, this strategy is better than an onsite-remote-onsite-remote model. It’s also experimental so it can be adjusted as needed.

Week-by-week Hybrid Work Model

For this model, employers take into account the convenience of having an entire week/s in the office and another entire week/s at home or another remote location. Teams come to the office together and have the benefit of each other’s presence for an entire week. They can plan their workload around this availability, maximizing collaboration by doing tasks that are most effective in person, such as brainstorming ideas, team building, training, and planning.

Also read: Best ways to manage employees remotely: 5 tips that work

Technologies for Productivity and Collaboration

While hybrid work models today are a far cry from the work environments of pre-pandemic and pre-internet times, they still come with the usual disadvantages, including performance and productivity slumps and problems with communication and collaboration. Because of this, technologies have emerged to bridge the gap in remote and hybrid work setups. 

Here are 7 common apps/programs teams use to improve productivity and collaboration:

Zoom

Of course, everyone knows Zoom, one of the common apps for video conferencing. Workers use this for huddles, 1-on-1 meetings, scrums, and breakout meetings if necessary. It offers several features for making remote collaboration convenient and improving the online conferencing user experience.

Slack

Slack offers a remote digital workspace for teams. Workers can organize teams, departments, and committees within the app through separate channels. While it’s a messaging tool, it doesn’t look as formal as email and employees can create personal channels for banter during breaks, sharing photos of pets, hobbies, and vacations. It can also inform team members of the individual’s availability at any given time.

Google Workspace

Google Workspace is indispensable for teams that heavily use Google programs like Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Drive. It makes storing and sharing work files and documents easier, allowing for real-time edits and collaboration without having to send files back and forth. The Google Meet and Chat features also facilitate online messaging for urgent tasks.

Loom

For leaders who conduct frequent training or want to document process changes, Loom allows users to pre-record videos of them sharing their screens and talking through their webcams. They can send these videos to team members to watch offline.

Asana

This tool is best known for simplifying workflows, and providing templates teams can use to plan and organize company V2MOMs, BHAGs, WIGs, OKRs, projects, and other tasks. Team leaders can automate tasks to take these steps off members’ shoulders. This platform can work with other apps and programs.

Microsoft Teams

Unlike Google Workspace, MS Teams is not web-based and can work offline. It is most valuable to organizations that already have a Microsoft presence as they can simply connect everything for meetings, file-sharing, app-sharing, messaging, and collaboration.

Trello

Like Asana, Trello lets employees organize their tasks, ideas, to-dos, and collaboration. The platform is likened to a whiteboard filled with sticky notes (in this case, it’s cards) assigned to various groups or individuals. These cards can contain pictures, data, attachments, or links from other apps or data sources, and all users can comment, assign, and message for efficient collaboration. And oh, you can bring these cards anywhere you go on whatever device you have.

Hybrid work models are definitely changing the office landscape in many industries. They are giving employees more flexibility in improving work-life balance, increasing quality time with the family, and lessening the non-essential aspects of working onsite (e.g. half-hour stays in the pantry before logging in, mandatory coffee breaks because they’re part of work hours, long commutes) while allowing management to keep tabs of key results and career trajectories. 

The key to benefiting the most from these models is for employers and employees to honestly discuss what will work best for them and to have an open mind in accepting the decision of the majority.