Commentary: Amid return-to-office mandates, has hybrid work not lived up to its hype?

SINGAPORE: Two years post-pandemic, more companies have summoned employees back to the office – some even mandating five in-office days a week like tech giant Amazon recently announced.
Corporate leaders argue that time in the office boosts productivity, collaboration and company culture. Employees push back, arguing that flexible work arrangements lead to productivity boosts through greater autonomy, reduced commuting and improved work-life balance. Who’s right?
Having researched remote and hybrid work for over 25 years I can confidently say that both sides are right, but the truth is more nuanced than the black and white stories both camps would prefer.
Both advocates of in-office work and remote work claim productivity gains, yet neither side typically defines what they mean by “productivity”.
Are we talking about individual or collective productivity, short-term or long-term gains? These distinctions are crucial: Benefits to one may come with costs to another.
For example, employees working remotely may see a short-term productivity boost by reducing distraction, but at the cost of long-term productivity when it reduces opportunities to learn from peers. Or alternatively, it may reduce collective productivity by degrading the interpersonal relationships that form the basis of trust.
We need to be clear what type of productivity we are trying to optimise.
Relying on productivity data collected during and immediately after the pandemic is problematic for several reasons.
First, the pandemic was an unprecedented global event affecting not only business, but individual psychology. Many of us worked harder to maintain stability in a time of great uncertainty. This context makes it difficult to predict how well that maps onto “business as usual” going forward.
Second, most remote teams during the pandemic had already established relationships, norms and cultures from their previous in-office interactions. Today’s hybrid workers often don’t have that shared history as a starting point.
Research on Media Richness Theory tells us that communicating via technology limits the amount and quality of social cues we receive, making it much harder to build trust and cohesion.
Third, we simply have not yet had enough time to assess the long-term consequences of widespread remote work. The benefits, like flexibility and autonomy are often experienced immediately, while potential costs such as weakened culture or reduced innovation may take more time to emerge – creating a biased picture that emphasises short-term gains over long-term sustainability.
These arguments do not favour either side of the debate; they illustrate why we don’t yet have a complete picture of the impact of COVID-19’s remote work boom.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy re-ignited this debate by justifying his edict by citing “significant” advantages to being together in the office.
Even employees will acknowledge that time in the office has many benefits – and the research backs it up. It increases opportunities for interactions (particularly unplanned ones, the serendipitous corridor chats and watercooler moments) which boost social connections and build trust. It provides more opportunities to reduce misunderstandings and resolve conflicts, and increases exposure to the organisation’s culture which increases the speed and extent to which new people are socialised and integrated.
However, it is equally true that such policies come at a cost of sense of autonomy and control – long recognised as critical elements of good job design, incur greater costs in terms of commuting time and in some cases relocations, and constrain employee choices with respect to work-life balance.
But leaders like Amazon’s Jassy neglect this nuance and offer a glimpse into their mindset – that things were just better the way they used to be – with such unhelpful arguments like: “Before the pandemic, it was not a given that folks could work remotely two days a week, and that will also be true moving forward”.
It’s a tone-deaf attempt to convince employees that there isn’t a better way of working. Would it not also be equally fair to say: “During the pandemic, it was a given that folks could work remotely full time …” as the basis for the opposite policy?
Work norms are constantly changing (remember that many in Singapore worked 5.5 days a week before the early 2000s). That is a good thing – it means we are learning.
Neither of these positions is helpful in moving ahead with a sustainable approach to work.
As I argued with Amy Edmondson in a recent Harvard Business Review article, we need to reframe this discussion to take a more balanced approach that is focused on finding mutually beneficial solutions. Managerial policy edicts and individual employee demands both trigger retaliatory pushback, creating the vicious cycle we see playing out today.
Designing the perfect work environment is impossible. Not only does it require balancing diverse and often conflicting interests, those needs and constraints are constantly evolving which requires ongoing adaptation.
To find the most optimal solution, employers and employees alike must remain flexible and have a collaborative discussion – which requires really listening and not just talking past each other.
Mark Mortensen is Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour at INSEAD.