8x8 Hybrid Work Series: What’s Really Driving Where We Work?

Editor's Note: This is part one of a three-part series on the move to hybrid work.

Following the initial shock of the 2020 move to remote work, many organizations have actually seen significant benefits from a reduction of in-office work. So much so, in fact, that more than 80% of organizations have now adopted a hybrid working model.

The biggest benefit of hybrid working comes from reducing the amount of owned or rented real estate, one of an organization’s biggest fixed costs, particularly in metropolitan locations. This generates a significant reduction in operating costs, including the costs of office services like heating and security, to consumables like furnishing, stationery, and printing. In the US, 70% of organizations have permanently closed some or all of their office space in the last two years, while those that remain open are on average only 40% occupied.

Hybrid working has also made recruitment easier. Recruiters don’t have to restrict themselves to the pool of people who live within a daily commute of the office, which opens up opportunities to a wider and often more diverse and experienced pool of talent. It also increases the productivity of your existing staff, as location independence has been shown to give people stronger autonomy, leading to greater performance and lower absenteeism.

Balancing access to the office

It’s not just management enjoying the perks of hybrid working, though. It’s clear that now that people have had the opportunity to experience a new way of working, one with no commute, the majority won’t go back to a fully office-based role. Hybrid working supports work-life balance, living in a preferred or lower-cost location, plus swapping commute time for time with the family, exercising, or taking up new hobbies.

Recent surveys have found that:

• 42% of employees want to work mostly from home, and sometimes from their usual place of work, a rise of 12% in a year.
• 64% of workers would consider quitting if they were asked to return to the office full-time.
• Nearly two-thirds (65%) of US-based Gen Z workers said a hybrid workplace is important when considering a potential employer.

Hybrid work and human connection

Yet despite these figures, many people do need, or prefer, to work in the office. The move to remote work was particularly hard for people living in conditions that make it difficult to work from their home environment. In one survey, as many as three-quarters of remote workers reported feeling worse as a result of long-term work-from-home policies, with 39% feeling more stressed.

This is in part because we all need human connections, and video links and phone calls can’t fully replicate this. But in some cases, it is simply because the available tools don’t work well enough. Too many applications and video meetings, plus complex communications and processes can be draining, leading to burnout and the growing issue of “quiet quitting.”

Bucking the hybrid work trend

There are still some high profile outliers who continue to declare their intention to return almost entirely to the office, but they are few and far between. The vast majority of organizations recognize that hybrid working is the future, and will work to create the workplaces they need, and that their employees want. And that’s the way to business success.

Optimize every office for hybrid work

Working from home or working from the office? It shouldn't matter. Find out how the 8x8 eXperience Communications Platform™ uses integrated contact center, voice, video, chat, and embeddable communications to support any hybrid work implementation.

Up next: Part two of the series, Workplace Agility: How IT Teams are Mastering the Future of Work.