Hybrid workers seek the best of in-office and remote work
Shifting between the office and home can be challenging, but hybrid workers value the flexibility.
Jana Arbanas
Paul H. Silverglate
Susanne Hupfer
Jeff Loucks
Prashant Raman
Michael Steinhart
Our 2022 survey found that remote work was enormously popular with workers: 99% of those who had worked from home appreciated aspects of the experience, including the lack of commute, enhanced comfort, better focus, and feeling more connected to family. In 2023, as many companies ask employees to return to the office, it appears that they’re offering hybrid schedules to help soften the blow.1
Our survey revealed that 56% of employed adults work from home at least some of the time: 22% work fully from home and 34% keep a hybrid schedule. The remaining 44% work fully in office. We asked hybrid workers how many days they commute into the office vs. work from home: On average, hybrid workers spend 3 days in office and 2.6 days working at home, which correlates with the hybrid schedules that many companies have reportedly adopted.2 More than half of the hybrid workers surveyed (54%) said it’s their employer’s decision that they can work a hybrid schedule, and another 30% said they had arrived at the decision with their employer.
Comparing this year’s findings with last year’s, employees seem to be more successful in navigating some challenges of remote work (figure 6.1). Fewer remote workers say they have difficulty building professional relationships, collaborating, and balancing household responsibilities with work. However, complaints about technology and connectivity have gone up, with more remote employees saying their work systems don’t function well enough and that they have a harder time accessing the information and files they need.
These findings point to a potential need for employers to refresh employee hardware and update the tools and systems that support remote workers. Working at least partially remotely seems to be workers’ preferred approach, but it’s not one that companies can simply “set and forget.”
In this year’s survey, hybrid workers expressed higher job satisfaction than other workers, and at least eight in 10 reported their relationships with family members, colleagues, and managers have improved or stayed the same, compared with when they worked fully in office. At the same time, while they appreciate the flexibility that hybrid work provides, they’re feeling the strain of juggling two work models.3 The challenges come into stark relief when their responses are compared with those of fully at-home workers: Hybrid workers are more likely to feel disconnected from on-site colleagues and say that their collaboration efforts are ineffective, and they’re also more likely to be distracted by nonwork activities, to have difficulty accessing work files, to feel stress and burnout, and to have a hard time prioritizing their well-being. In time, hybrid may well offer the best of in-office and at-home work modes, but hybrid workers may need the support of their employers to overcome some of the challenges.4
On the whole, workers express a preference for fully remote and hybrid options over in-person work (figure 6.2). Preference for “completely or mostly in-person” has dropped from 44% last year to 37% this year, while preference for an even blend of remote and in-person rose from 21% last year to 28% this year. Going forward, nearly eight in 10 fully remote workers, two-thirds of hybrid workers, and even one-third of fully in-office workers would prefer virtual work options. This shows that workers believe in the promise of hybrid, even as some issues are still being ironed out.
Hybrid creates challenges for employers, as well. Letting workers set their own preferred hybrid schedules could cause workspace usage and in-person collaboration to suffer. However, if a company mandates certain in-office days, employees may resent the reduced flexibility.5 Getting hybrid “right”—with a mix of policies, cultural activities, and collaboration tools that empower workers at home and in the office — is likely to generate benefits for companies and employees.