Hybrid workspaces: the future of work?

Hybrid work has its challenges. However, the underpinning benefits mean we should seek to ensure its future. And research from right here in East Anglia has unearthed some intriguing findings, says Dr Laura J Reeves, Research Associate, University of Suffolk.

As the first weeks of 2025 roll by, and the near horizon marks five years since the Covid-19 pandemic hit the UK, firms here in the East, the rest of the UK, and across the world are wrestling with a conundrum.

Should workers return to their offices permanently, or is hybrid working here to stay? It’s a question that divides senior bosses across scores of industries.

For some it marks the ‘new normal’, empowering their staff to work flexibly, while for others it remains a dogged problem. However, research from East Anglia has unearthed some intriguing findings.

Over the past 12 months, and with funding from The British Academy of Management under the Transitions 1 Grant Scheme for early career academics, Professor Clare Rigg (Lancaster University Management School) and I explored how agile working arrangements affect managerial belonging.

Twenty-eight office-based managers in the East of England took part in the study: 22 were interviewed and 19 took part in focus groups.

All participants held middle management positions, and work in hybrid environments where they manage others, while being managed themselves through a combination of in-person and home-based online working.

During the study some conversations turned to the future of work, which is poignant given the current debate around Amazon mandating a return-to-office whilst the UK government’s Employment Rights Bill 2024 aims to make the right to request flexible work (including working from home) a default from day one.

Similar to the government stance, managers in our study advocated for hybrid work. One participant remarked, “I don’t think you can justify going back to [a] traditional 9-to-5 in the office.” Another noted, “I’m really not advocating for five days a week in the office – there’s a lot of good stuff [in hybrid work].”

This is based on hybrid work offering multiple benefits, rooted in the flexibility of workplace structures and operations, empowerment to choose the environment that best suits the task at hand, improved work-life balance, and the ability to build belonging while working remotely.

 As one participant put it, “It’s all about having a flexible approach and mindset, not shoehorning everything into one-size-fits-all.”

This is not to deny there can be challenges. Managers explained they found the transition to managing a hybrid workforce challenging due to a lack of training. They also highlighted a disconnect between managers, who tend to interact with each other less when working from home. Additionally, the study noted the difficulty in onboarding remotely.

Yet, if some managers are questioning the need for a full return to the office, how can these challenges be mitigated so that hybrid working is the future of work?

In terms of management development, a resounding recommendation from study participants was for businesses to invest in training and personal development. When it comes to managerial disconnect, managers in the study said, “I think it would feel nice to feel more of that belonging across the institution with peers, but it just doesn’t exist.”

 An increase in regular managerial meetings is needed. These do not need to be formal or in-person (although these were also suggested). But on a formal basis, the implementation of a peer supervision arrangement would allow managers to actively support each other – especially across departments – to minimise team silo effects.

One of the main challenges, referred to by more than 55 percent of managers, was the difficulty onboarding new employees. Some highlighted the difficulty in relation to building team culture; others felt the issue involved less opportunity for informal learning for new employees, which tends to be come through socialisation and immersion in the work environment. The important question is: how do we embed new employees?

Our study reinforced the suggestion that in-person inductions are preferable to ensure new starters meet colleagues and build relationships.

Research from the Harvard Business Review shows that being in the office more than 60 percent of the week does not bring additional short-term or long-term onboarding outcomes.

However, in a hybrid working context, our study participants still identified the potential difficulty of trying to introduce new staff to a team that is rarely all together on site.

Our study does not go far enough to provide a solution to this challenge, with some managers explaining they still face this difficulty.

This leaves me on a final point: if hybrid is the way forward, with many managers seeing no clear justification for a full office return and the UK government supporting flexible work, can we work together to tackle issues with new employees and find better ways to embed them into an organisation while hybrid working?

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