What Is Hybrid Remote Work?
Jose Luansing Jr.
17 minutes ago

The COVID-19 pandemic forced employers worldwide to adopt remote work. Although many businesses thrived, larger corporations and organizations faced workflow bottlenecks. Their large employee populations made remote operations challenging.

Now that society’s regaining a sense of normalcy, companies are transitioning to a new model: hybrid remote work. But many aren’t familiar with it yet. Here’s what hybrid remote work means, how it differs from remote work, and why you should give it a chance.

What Does Hybrid Remote Mean?

Hybrid remote work combines in-office and remote work setups. Companies that follow this approach have employees working on-site, remotely, or both. Most adopted it after local governments lifted pandemic restrictions when they needed in-office teams but couldn’t implement full-scale back-to-office strategies.

There are several variations of hybrid remote work, meaning employers could assess what approach suits their industry, workflow, and talents.

Flexible Hybrid Model
The flexible hybrid approach gives employees total control over whether they work in or out of the office. It doesn’t follow fixed schedules. You can report to the office for project collaborations and work remotely when finishing individual tasks—just coordinate with your supervisor.

The main advantage of this model is it builds trust. Companies can boost morale, improve job satisfaction, and foster healthy work relationships by giving their workers independence. Restrictive policies rarely improve employee loyalty.

But one downside is it lacks structure. Workplace leaders might have trouble balancing remote and on-site teams, especially if employees make last-minute schedule changes.

Remote-First Hybrid Model
The remote-first hybrid model fits companies that prioritize remote work and occasionally hold in-person meetups. They don’t necessarily need a physical office. Some just rent coworking spaces or events places on Airbnb for their gatherings.

Startups often use this strategy to regulate costs while scaling operations. They assess how their remote workers react to in-person meetings and project collaborations before investing in a physical office. Likewise, this approach also helps corporations downsize their in-office teams and gradually shift to remote work.

Just note that fully remote and remote-first work models have subtle differences. You might still feel isolated since you’ll only meet your coworkers on scheduled occasions—often just once or twice a month.

Office-First Hybrid Model

The office-first hybrid model prioritizes in-office teams. Employers could follow schedules with very few work-from-home days or limit remote teams to X percent of the employee population. Either way, their resources are primarily allocated to on-site operations.

This approach is popular among large organizations that need mid-level managers frequently supervising workers. They were likely forced to adopt remote work because of the pandemic.

Take Apple as an example. As reported by Bloomberg, Apple quickly asked its employees to report back to the office after nationwide pandemic restrictions were loosened in 2022. It reduced its remote workdays by 75 percent.

Perhaps the most obvious downside to this model is it barely differs from the traditional in-office setup. You’ll still come to the office on most workdays. And expect employers to drop hybrid work eventually if their productivity ratings plummet.