As you already know by now, hybrid working refers to flexibility when it comes to choosing the place of work.
It’s already clear that employees need the freedom to work flexibly and autonomously, in an office or outside of it. And this is not only because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the “Telework in the 21st century” study, it was concluded that in the pre-pandemic US, desks were empty on an average of 40-50% of normal working hours. The rest of the time, employees work from meeting rooms, clients’ offices, coffee shops, airports, and just about anywhere with internet connection.
But employees also want to have the flexibility that allows them to go to the dentist, the bank, to get their kids from school, etc.
This leads us to another type of flexibility: flex working hours. Flexible hours mean that employees can have different start and end times, rather than the standard nine-to-five work schedule. Certain companies allow their employees to have a flexible start time, maybe between 8 and 11. Others might allow more flexibility, if people end up with 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week. For example, some employees can work from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and then from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. Or, what about working more than 8 hours per day for four days instead, then having a shorter Friday? Working compressed schedules can be very rewarding for certain employees.
At the end of the day, flexible hours can enable employees to work as they want if they keep their productivity level and meet targets.
Ultimately, employers must take overall flexibility into account, because it brings in two important benefits:
- Higher employee retention and loyalty. When employees have more control over their schedule, they feel appreciated, and this leads to higher work satisfaction and motivation.
- The attraction of better candidates. More people will feel attracted by the opportunity of a flexible schedule, thus companies will have a larger pool of candidates available.
This means that the new working models that will shape 2025 will be, flexible and:
- Fully remote
- Remote with a spice of office work – aka hybrid
- Office work with a spice of remote – still hybrid
- Office only
The Zillow hybrid work story
And now, I have an excellent example that proves the benefits of hybrid working. Zillow is an American real-estate marketplace with more than 6,000 employees. Dan Spaulding, chief people officer at Zillow, tells Fortune “We like to think we hire adults. We like to treat people like adults.”
In the fall of 2020, Zillow initiated its remote-focused approach by informing staff they wouldn’t be required to return to full-time office work. This announcement prompted hundreds of employees to relocate throughout the country. In response to this geographic dispersal, Zillow formalized their “CloudHQ” model, declaring their headquarters to be digital rather than tied to any physical location. This shift effectively established their online presence as the company’s primary hub, replacing the traditional concept of a centralized office headquarters.
Before 2020, Zillow had 11 offices across the US, with 95% of their employees living within commuting distance to one of the offices. Now, Zillow has only 6 offices, and Spaulding says he goes into the office about four or five days a month, though never consecutively.
Now, what was the outcome?
The company has seen 4X increase in the number of applications for open roles since they began rolling out the CloudHQ model.
“I’ve worked in HR for 25 years, I’ve never seen the demographic shift that I’ve seen since moving to Cloud HQ,” says Spaulding. “We believe that’s a differentiator for us in terms of not just attracting those employees to Zillow, but retaining them for a longer period of time.”
Atlassian’s approach to flexible and hybrid working
Atlassian, the Australian tech giant behind popular tools like Jira, Trello, and Confluence, employs over 10,000 people across five continents. The company’s workforce spans 13 countries, and since 2020, all Atlassian employees have had daily freedom to choose their work location.
This approach, branded as “Team Anywhere,” has contributed to Atlassian’s recognition by both Glassdoor and Fortune as one of the Best Places to Work in 2023. The policy enables flexible working and cross-border collaboration while helping the company attract global talent. Atlassian maintains that this work model benefits both their team members and customers by promoting innovation and operational efficiency.
“The biggest blockers to productivity, connection, and innovation are not location-based. They center around how work gets done: back-to-back meetings, vague priorities, confusing email threads, and streams of distracting notifications. All knowledge workers face these challenges, regardless of where they work. “
Atlassian
After the first 1000 days of “Team Anywhere”, the Atlassian team had some initial conclusions:
Here are some of the benefits they are listing:
- Atlassian’s employees save ~10 days per year in time they would have previously spent commuting.
- 92% of Atlassians say that their distributed work policy allows them to do their best work.
- 91% of employees say that their current work policy is an important reason why they stay at Atlassian.
- The number of candidates per role has more than doubled.
- Candidate offer acceptance rate grew by 20%.
- There was no productivity slowing down.
- Important real estate annual savings: Atlassian believes that without Team Anywhere, they would have needed twice the office space they have.
- Representation of women at Atlassian in India has more than doubled.
- Employees spend 13% less time in meetings and report a 32% improvement in focus.
- Team meetings lead to a 27% increase in feelings of connection, and this boost lasts 4-5 months.
You can read more details about Atlassian’s approach, in our article: How Atlassian is Managing Distributed Teams.
So, yes, hybrid and flexible work have some pros and cons, but they can work, they just need to be managed properly.
But how can companies handle the return to office, while also remaining hybrid? Find out in the next chapter.
