I think hybrid working of the “X days a week” variety doesn’t make employees happy and doesn’t achieve the cross pollination businesses want. This is intended to be a short post articulating why I feel it’s a terrible compromise and a suggestion for what to do instead.

In person relationships are essential to the good working order of a team.

Andy Mcnab describes some meetings in his book Firewall as on a sliding scale of how pleased the boss is. If you are offered tea and biscuits, it’s overwhelmingly positive and you’re in for a huge pat on the back. If it’s a bottle of water and tissues on the desk things have not gone well (presumably you’re going to cry so much you become dehydrated). It seems it’s the middle of the road meetings that comprise most of our days however. These mundane meetings are the status updates and discussions about how to do something. Many of the meetings we have today seem to exist because not everyone could be trusted to read an email. I feel that’s an essential backdrop to the topic of hybrid working.

Hybrid meetings suck

Let’s get it out of the way: if the meetings McNab described were hybrid, half of the room would not even be aware that the desk has biscuits, water or tissues. Half of the room are using a million years of human firmware to track eye positions, body language and a myriad of elementary variables like volume. The other half are hearing one word in five and unable to speak without sliding in the host’s DMs to request to be unmuted.

There’s a time for meeting in person, and a time for meeting remotely but I think the two are oil and water. Everyone will say it’s “okay” but oftentimes it’s just so they don’t have to go into the office (which is my next point).

Most hybrid employees don’t understand why they are in the office

Social groups have rules and people reasonably expect to follow rules from their employer, including where they are supposed to work. The main problem with hybrid work is clearly articulating why people are required to be in the office in a way that isn’t obviously bullshit.

Here are some bullshit reasons for going into the office I hear all the time:

"Communication is better because we have hybrid days"

In person communication is better but the vast majority of the time with hybrid work schemes you’re in a hybrid meeting of some kind, speaking to a computer anyway. If you can work it that everyone is in the office on a certain day then you’re right and the reason isn’t bullshit at all. I've yet to actually see an office where people always come in when they say they will, however.

"Hybrid work fosters company culture"

Hybrid work tends to create many cultures but not the cultures you might expect or want.

The type of hybrid work where you can pick any day in the week or month to be in is especially pernicious. Office snakes will choose to go in on the day their boss’s boss is in to try to curry favour. Others will go in on light days to refill their stock of toilet rolls at home and clear the office of biscuits and coffee. These examples aren’t jokes; terrifyingly I've seen each of these situations emerge more than once.

It just doesn’t work to pack everyone into a room and expect the early days of Google to grow out of it, you’re equally likely to get something from Orange is the new Black. Environments do shape cultures that much is true, but forcing people in on a seemingly random day has odd effects on some people. Enough to have impacts opposite to the ones you might hope for.

"Everyone is more productive"

If your organization has perfectly scheduled head down work at times people aren’t required to be in the office - excellent, you're some kind of work-predicting wizards and this doesn’t apply to you.

Deep work in the office is infuriating in hybrid offices because everyone has been told they're there to communicate and build culture. There will be people having a chat behind you, there will be a long lunch break. There will be a temptation to cut away to the pub at 5pm. The phrase ”It would have been easier to write this at home” resonates with almost everyone because it's so representative of our experiences.

What works: remote first

This philosophy is based on two simple principles:

Keeping the playing field level at all times

  • Meetings should always be conducted as if people were not physically present, even if they are. This means each person in the call needs a webcam, a microphone and headphones. It doesn't matter how good your new jabra is; it’s the technology inside our brains that's holding hybrid meetings back.
  • Leaders should be discouraged from working in the office on a schedule because of common problems with:
    • Decisions influenced by in office cliques
    • Uneven playing fields for brown-nosing

Require a specific reason for people to be co-located

This reason should be in the form of a desired outcome, e.g. planning the next year's work, meeting new joiners or training. It has to be a good enough reason that if nothing else happens that day, you’d still be satisfied that it was a good day's work. For compassionate and logistical reasons many companies stack these days together, e.g. a week in the summer and a week at the end of the year. This is easier to manage for everyone.

What also works: only work in the office

Perhaps unsurprisingly both principles of keeping the playing field level and requiring a reason to be colocated can be met by 100% office time - if work can only be done in the office. An almost eye-rolling proposition for many companies in 2024.

The only thing that doesn’t work

The only thing that doesn't work is ironically what we’re all trying to do - the new de rigueur of X days in Y timeframe style hybrid.