Despite considerable evidence gathered during the Covid pandemic about the merits, or otherwise, of remote working, the debate continues to linger on as to whether it’s good for people to come back into the workplace or have either fully remote or hybrid work patterns.

The only real consensus is that there is no consensus, with as many firms seeming to want employees back in as those believing employees should be free to choose. A recent paper from Harvard Business School suggests that a hybrid combination of the two might be the best approach.

Finding the sweet spot

The authors argue that a hybrid approach creates the right combination of engagement and flexibility that works well for employee engagement but also in terms of creativity and productivity.

The findings emerged after analyzing over 30,000 emails sent by employees at the nongovernmental organization BRAC during 2020. The researchers used textual analysis to explore the contents of each email, while also conducting qualitative surveys of both employees and managers.

Each participant was randomly assigned to work either remotely or in the office, with a mostly-at-home group spending just eight days in the office during the study period, a hybrid group spending up to 14 days at the office, and the office-based group spending over 15 days in the office.

The results showed that hybrid workers outperformed their peers in terms of the satisfaction they felt, the number of emails they sent, and the overall quality of their work. The findings suggest that any fears over a lack of collaboration or that work quality would diminish are overblown. Indeed, while the measure is somewhat random, the results suggest that the novelty of emails was actually highest among hybrid workers.

“If you are in the intermediate group, you get the greatest benefit of flexibility without having the costs of isolation from your coworkers,” the authors conclude.

Suffice it to say, judging the quality of work from emails is a somewhat roundabout way of doing so, and may not be applicable in many settings. Nonetheless, it adds some additional grist to the mill as this debate rumbles on.