The last quarter of 2024 has seen headlines highlighting some employers demanding full-time return-to-office arrangements and scaling back hybrid work policies. CEOs often emphasise the importance of in-person collaboration, camaraderie and mentorship as key reasons for requiring employees to return to the office. However, many employees highly value flexible work arrangements, with access to hybrid working becoming a decisive factor in staying with an employer or moving to another.
The employee value of hybrid work
According to the Office for National Statistics, more than a quarter of working adults in the UK (28%) were benefiting from a hybrid working arrangement by autumn 2024. Many have over the past years been able to re-design work lives with the sudden surge in global hybrid working policies. Employees have been actively modifying and shaping their own job roles, tasks, diaries and interactions in ways that align better with their skills, interests, personal values and family commitments.
Remote workers saved an average of 56 minutes daily by not commuting and findings show that this time was often spent on family time, exercise and well-being.
Hybrid working and job crafting: a perfect match
As a result, a growing body of research links hybrid working to job crafting. Job crafting involves employees modifying their roles to align with their strengths, interests, and values. This allows employees to actively customise their work experience, optimising both remote and in-office elements.
Hybrid working provides the flexibility that supports job crafting by allowing employees to change their work settings to better suit their personal needs and preferences. Both arrangements emphasise flexibility, autonomy, and control over work tasks, relationships and the work environment.
How job crafting enhances hybrid work
Here is how the components of job crafting align with hybrid working:
Task crafting: Employees can adjust the scope or nature of job tasks to make them more engaging or meaningful, like adjusting their tasks based on their location (home or office). For instance, tasks requiring deep focus like data analysis, writing reports or coding and minimal collaboration can be done remotely and with fewer distractions. Meanwhile, tasks involving teamwork or meetings may be more suited to in-office settings and with access to office resources.
Organisations with a hybrid working policy can enable their employees to optimise their work by choosing where they can be most productive for each of their tasks.
Relational crafting: Hybrid work allows employees to decide when and how to engage with colleagues, balancing in-person interactions with virtual ones. For example, an employee might reserve in-person office time for team-building activities, mentoring sessions or client meetings, while using virtual tools (e.g., Slack, Zoom) for day-to-day check-ins or casual discussions. This creates a more intentional way of managing work relationships.
Hybrid working policies can enable employees to engage with co-workers in a more thoughtful and effective manner, using both remote and in-person methods to nurture relationships and maintain team cohesion.
Cognitive crafting: Employees can reshape how they view their tasks, choosing to focus on the outcomes of their work rather than the specific location. This might involve reframing the job’s meaning or purpose, such as seeing it as a way to contribute to a greater goal or seeing routine tasks as more valuable. For example, someone who works remotely may shift their mindset from "I'm missing out on office interactions" to "I have more control over my schedule and can focus on high-impact projects."
Organisations can enable their employees to embrace the hybrid model by adjusting their perception of the work environment. A shift in thinking can help employees maintain a positive attitude, promote a healthy work-life balance and stay engaged in their work.
Designing hybrid work for maximum employee engagement
By collaborating with teams and leaders to break down roles into their individual components, organisations can better understand how virtual work characteristics shape employees’ experiences. This will allow organisations to make more informed decisions about where hybrid work can be best leveraged to meet both individual and organisational needs.
Reviewing the tasks performed in each job and identifying where and when they might be conducted benefits individuals and teams alike:
On a team level: Teams that reflect on their hybrid working and job crafting strategies can actively shape their collective experience and make interactions more inclusive, efficient, clear and meaningful.
On an organisational level: Organisations can make more informed decisions about their office space, technology, employee experience and personal circumstances.
As hybrid working continues to evolve, organisations that embrace job crafting and flexibility will be better positioned to support their workforce including employee’s well-being, enhanced productivity and a thriving work environment.
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