Can there be a hybrid happy middle ground for innovative businesses?

Forget Zoom fatigue. The arguments over hybrid’s impact on culture, productivity and collaboration have clogged LinkedIn News Feeds for a long while until Chat GPT reared its head.

The stakes are higher for fast-growth companies that rely on collaboration to innovate. Once it was seen as essential it was done in person. But even Google’s return-to-office (RTO) policy was met with backlash from some employees.

As one employee asked on Google’s internal board called Dory (which received lots of upvotes).:

“Why is the RTO policy not work from office when you want to or when it makes sense?”

^{Source: CBN News}

We firmly believe in a hybrid working model that balances flexibility with business goals, but we’re not here to continue the debate. After all, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach.

But the latest studies help pinpoint the areas where leaders and employees agree and disagree - backing up what we see working on the ground for fast-growth companies where collaboration and culture are key drivers.

So if you’re considering redesigning your office for hybrid work, this blog is for you!

(NOTE: This is an excerpt from our eBook below (just click on the link to download it)

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Transform your startup workspace into an asset that drives collaboration and culture

The essential workspace criteria that wins on the ground for start-ups & scale-ups

Get hybrid working right - or risk losing sought-after talent

Getting the hybrid working model wrong can spell disaster for most companies’ talent attraction and retention strategies. But in the startup and scaleup space, it’s even more crucial to get it right because the competition for the best talent is higher - with exponential growth in the number of tech roles in the last year alone.

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65% of the respondents viewed the hybrid work structure as their ideal work arrangement

^{Zoom survey 2021}

55% of employees say that their work environment would play a role in the decision to switch jobs

^{Source: Microsoft’s 2021 Work Trend Index}

20% increase in tech roles in the last year

^{Source: Tech Nation’s People and Skills Report 2022}

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Is there really a clash over culture?

No man is an island, as they say. We’re all human and we’re hard-wired to seek face-to-face interactions. As much as employees now want to spend some days working from home, many still see working in the office as important for building relationships.

The productivity debate rages on

Almost two-thirds of leaders still feel like office work is key to employee productivity, whereas employees and the latest research beg to differ.

‍Sources: The Accenture Future of Work Study 2021:

PWC’s US Remote Work Survey 2021

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Collaboration: finally one thing everyone agrees on

There may be tensions between executives and employees with hybrid working. But there’s a resounding agreement on one issue - the office is essential for collaboration.

‍The hybrid working takeaway

Employees don’t want to come into the office to be stuck on Zoom meetings 0r commuting in when they just want to get their head down. They want it to be purposeful - be that collaborating and building relationships with team members.

The thriving fast-growth firms we work with understand this. They’re looking at how they can provide the flexibility their employees want and ensure that they make time in the office count - as we’ll see next.

Discover the workspace strategies that startup and scaleups are using now to entice, not drag, people back into the workplace.

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Transform your startup workspace into an asset that drives collaboration and culture

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The essential workspace criteria that wins on the ground for start-ups & scale-ups

Download our ebook

Download our ebook