Going Hybrid Pt. 2: Why hybrid might be the future of work

Last time, we dove into the brave new world of hybrid workplaces. I spoke of my reluctance to adopt such a model. From a founder's perspective, I also provided several examples of the challenges that come with hybrid.

In this follow-up piece, I'd like to present the other side of that argument—the good things about hybrid work and who benefits most.

Now here's the thing. It wasn't that long ago that recruiters told us that not being open to hybrid working would be a hurdle for us. They said many candidates are no longer willing to commute to cities (in our case, Antwerp, and Austin).?

I get that people can have an aversion to traveling far for work. Still, surely there should be enough appropriate candidates who don't mind driving 20 to 30 minutes or using public transport (at least in Antwerp, which has an excellent system - Austin quite less so). But facts are facts, and this has become an undeniable issue that we had to tackle head-on.?

Is it possible for employers to benefit from hybrid the way employees do? When I talk to other founders, I can tell by how they talk about it and see many of them have a fatalistic view. I use the word fatalistic because it's almost as if we founders can't do anything about this tsunami of change. The economic market is on fire, with vast capital in the market, pushing wages up alongside high inflation. When you look at the longer economic debt cycle , we're at the top of it, which means sooner or later, we'll have a recession.

So here we are in a boom-time economy for employees. I don't know how long it will last; it may be years. Then, of course, it will come crashing down at some point. In the meantime, we're in an employee-driven market, and there's a war for great talent. There might also be a shortage of good talent due to said war and education not being able to keep up everywhere, which is very worrisome for obvious long-term reasons.?

All this to say that if we do not accept this new world of working, we are at a competitive disadvantage. Hence, I believe companies are going hybrid, having realized that the talent is driving the market.?

Many leaders will still argue the downsides to remote work. I think Apple is an excellent example of one of those companies that suffered as a company that historically required onsite presence. Now, I think they offer it because they have no other option and even then employees are reluctant to the hybrid model they offer.

A reluctant revolution

COVID-19, for all its misery, might have the upside that it forced us to accelerate corporate digitization, and for companies already adopting remote working like us, making that switch was very easy. We were lucky, but I can imagine that larger corporates in older industries with legacy systems probably suffered greatly through such a transition.?

By way of brute force, the pandemic may well have created a world where employers recognize that they can trust their employees to work autonomously and that corporate leaders don't always need to control everything. We do, however, need to make sure there is structure, process, and sound technology. We have to adapt to using suitable tools and apps that best support this way of working. For instance, we use Asana, Slack, and Jira to name a few, training people to use these apps to make collaboration effective.

So we've all been dragged to this unique point—some of us had to swim hard, drowned, and needed life rafts while talent surfed the wave. And so here we are, in a situation where we have to nail hybrid working and get the best of both worlds for the company and the team.?

A change for the good

We are heading towards a world where people can be more flexible, and where, for example, they'll have to wait less in traffic, and let's face it, commuting is miserable. Looking back to a time when I always had to come on-site, I learned so much during my commute as I used that hour & a half to listen to audiobooks. But there have been some interesting studies on the correlation between commuters and general unhappiness. Their overall life satisfaction is lower. Plus, sitting in your car or on a train or bus for so long every day is terrible for your posture and lower back.?

So not having to commute, or at least, with hybrid work, not as much, can only be a good thing. Employees can now use those moments in the morning and evening both to get some extra work done as well as personal time—either with family or dedicating the time to themselves for fitness, mindfulness, or to write that book they've talked about for years. If doing this can be a win-win for the employer and the employee, then indeed, it's a great thing, isn't it?

Hybrid tip #1: Flexibility is a perk that should benefit both employee and employer.

The need for deep work

It's true that while, for some, being in the office provides bountiful opportunities to collaborate. But there's also a lot of work that requires focus. I have these blocks in my calendar three times a week. Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. They're three-hour blocks labeled 'deep work.' I deal with all work needing reviews, creative and deeper thinking, and longer stretches of concentrated effort during these times. I turn down Slack and email, and I might even switch my phone off. The result? I'm a million times more productive and efficient than usual. Check out Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World, by Cal Newport.

Hybrid tip #2: Foresee blockers for deep work, especially when you work from home.

Naturally, we can focus at home, too, provided we create the right work environment. So to get the best out of our employees when working from home, we ought to encourage them to take time to nurture an effective home workspace—ideally, a dedicated room with some healthy boundaries attached. For example, it's super-hard to work from home if you have a needy pet or kids who constantly need your attention.?

Sometimes there's no other option; I completely recognize that, but if you have an extra room or at least a corner somewhere, anything is better than the kitchen table, which is one of the worst places. There's a constant distraction because your kitchen table is associated with home life. Actually, working from your bed is even worse. Double trouble as the desire to snooze during work time is intense or because your workspace is directly associated with sleep. Ironically enough, your sleep may suffer because you turn your bed into a desk, thus destroying the positive association you have with it. So making a good, comfortable, and functional home working space is crucial, allowing focus even while at home.

Hybrid tip #3: Create a dedicated home workspace with whatever you need to feel comfortable and inspired.

It's a family affair

I can't imagine how parents with full-time jobs juggle flexibility, but hybrid working helps this. With my co-founder recently becoming a father, I've seen how much time new parents need. New families must spend quality time bonding as it's crucial for the child's early emotional development. Such a luxury would be very hard without hybrid working.?

This is an extra perk, which I believe creates additional equality. Despite the encouraging changes we're seeing in terms of equality, more women still tend to take time off to look after their children. That seems to be the default for many couples. But we have to make sure that we don't exclude women from opportunities that way. And so, if we can nurture an environment for mothers and fathers to make great careers while also staying at home with the kids, then mums and dads can score big time at work and home. I think that's great for society as a whole.?

Making hybrid work work

In our case, things vary between our Austin or Antwerp offices, but we've chosen dates when we know it works for everyone to be on-site. We require employees to come to the office five days out of every two weeks now. For example, our sales team in Antwerp comes in every Tuesday and Friday, and a third day every two weeks is up to the employees. Of course, they can come in more if that helps them being more productive.?

So far, everyone's enjoying the extra flexibility and working as a team. In the end, we've just got to trust our employees will do the right thing. It will be a lesson for employers and employees alike. There will be those who abuse the system and those who shine - thriving in their roles. I think most people will be fair and adhere to the rules, respecting the trust we put in them. Because we trust our people, we did not implement a hefty tracking system to monitor people's time. It's an extra layer of complication that would needlessly consume far too much management headspace.?

Hybrid tip #3: Empower your team by instilling trust, without the need for constant monitoring.?

If the experiment fails

Don't get me wrong. If we see people are never coming to the office and collaboration suffers, we'll address it immediately and seriously. But so far, it hasn't happened. I'm sure as we grow, sooner or later, things might falter, but that's okay. Meanwhile, we can give our people freedom and autonomy, far outweighing the potential risks or drawbacks of hybrid work.?

Many leaders might respond reactively if hybrid work fails in some areas, resulting in more rules to prevent such things from happening again. Still, I'm more in favor of accepting the inevitability of humans being humans. Some will exploit the system (indicating it’s not the right system for them); others will flourish, empowered by the newfound trust instilled by their employers, and motivated by a new mindful way of living and working.

Here's the thing: implementing more rules and stricter policies will lead to a less efficient, autonomous, free-thinking organization, which will be counterproductive to our ultimate goal when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, and how we think about office space.?

Hybrid tip #4: Don’t fall into the trap of reactively implementing restrictive rules - accept there will be fails. Some people thrive with autonomy, some don’t. Act accordingly.

The workspace evolution

Right now, many employers are ironically in a bad situation because we're paying for office space to accommodate entire teams. We invest in interior decor to make it friendly and cool. But then, at least half of the time, people are not using it. When I look around our Austin WeWork, it's ridiculous to see how much space is officially 'booked,' yet there's no one using it. So yes, hybrid working is great for employees, but employers are paying for empty space. Will this become a new commercial norm? If you asked most employees whether they'd rather have a funky office with a slide running through it or work from home two-three days a week, the slide would lose.?

What if we wind up with workspaces that cannot accommodate team gatherings when needed? I think we'll see an evolution in companies behaving more like hubs. Perhaps this is an opportunity for commercial real estate developers to offer more hybrid workspace solutions? I call them "parachute" offices. E.g., we need some space in a particular city for a few days; we land on Monday. Suddenly we have a whole office with ready-to-use amenities. That could be massively valuable to companies in the future. It would still offer the employee the flexibility and I think it's an excellent opportunity for entrepreneurs to leverage that kind of flexibility and those kinds of spaces.?

Exciting times

So hybrid working's growing on me, and as more tools and processes appear to support it, I might even be excited about the possibilities for us to collaborate in new ways. Every two weeks, we have a 'town hall' meeting, where all teams gather and share, with business goals in mind. So there are many meeting types, structures, and processes you can drive into a company to make sure everyone aligns to this way of working.

One of the key things I must do as a CEO and co-founder is to make sure that the business targets and results are clear to the team. Because, as Peter Parker's Uncle Ben once said, "With great power comes great responsibility."? If they are to grow and embrace this newfound level of trust and autonomy, they must level up to be brought into the fold.?

As we provide more autonomy to our team, every employee must understand how their actions impact the business. I believe that expressing this kind of understanding and authenticity can contribute to a super-healthy culture and job satisfaction.?

For instance, we continue to build up our internal financial systems and expose more metrics to the team, allowing people more freedom to make commercial decisions (supplier arrangements, for example). Gradually, this kind of financial learning will help employees improve their skillsets. They'll also appreciate and understand the cost of office space. :)

I've already implied that talent acquisition was undoubtedly a driver for our decision to go hybrid. Still, it wasn't such a drastic pivot for us, either in cultural or organizational terms. Thus, another bonus is that hybrid is a natural progression we can earnestly own as we already utilize remote working models (we trust our people). Meanwhile, in the war for talent, many companies are cynically offering hybrid to win candidates without fully supporting the concept. Perhaps it's these companies who will invest heavily in monitoring and micro-management??

It's also worth considering that employees don't all want flexibility. Some people really do live quite a bit further from a potential place of work. Do we want to lose the opportunity to work with exceptional talent because of a painful daily commute? Is it less painful now there's a requirement to only come into the office a couple of days a week??

In moving to a hybrid model, we're widening the talent pool, which is super-cool because we can broaden our geographic scope, especially in highly specialized roles. Finding people with rare combinations of skillsets that include Salesforce, for example, gets easier with this new model.?

Coming full circle

So I begin part one of this monologue expressing a wide range of concerns over hybrid working, yet regardless, I've come full circle. I think we're witnessing a workplace evolution, and while some roles may always require more collaboration, this will become the new way of working, which has the potential to be awesome.?

Hybrid working will allow people to live further away if they so wish. Who knows, maybe we'll even see a reversal (or at least slowing down) of urbanization? After all, we can't deny how recharged we feel getting away from the city and connecting with nature. For those who want it, the hybrid model offers the ability to live and work more rurally, in a quieter place, working in their own uniquely cultivated space. Perhaps some parents might feel this is an improvement for their family instead of city living. Of course, living further away from the city reduces the cost of living for many employees, which would only add to an improved quality of life.

One economic by-product of such radical change might be that we can return to more reasonable salary levels, allowing for better supply & demand market economics, thus creating a more efficient society.?

So all-in-all, having debated the idea, I can confirm that I'm genuinely excited about the opportunities that hybrid working will continue to present to our people and company. Yes, I was reluctant, but sometimes we have to admit that we might be wrong and consider the other points of view.?

There've been a few times in my life when I changed my mind after considering the data. The vast majority of those times, it worked out for the better. And so, I hope this is one of those moments. I'm surrendering to the flow and treating hybrid work as an experiment I welcome with open arms.