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Hybrid work promises the best of both worlds. Employees benefit from working remotely while you still get the office for close collaboration and social interactions with their colleagues.
But the benefits of hybrid work fly out the window if you have a lousy hybrid work schedule.
The tension comes when you mismatch the intent and the schedule. If your intent is to make sure you have time to connect every week, but you let everyone pick their own schedule, you’ll rarely have days when everyone is in the office at the same time.
Creating a hybrid schedule is all about finding what works best for both synchronous (in-office) and asynchronous (WFA) work.
What is a hybrid work schedule?
A hybrid work schedule determines when employees are expected to be in the office and when they can work from wherever they want. Your hybrid work schedule lets people know which days or weeks you want people in the office.
Ideally, a perfect hybrid work schedule removes the challenges of remote work without giving up on all of its benefits.
Hybrid work schedules can exist on a big spectrum. Some simply offer a single flex day in a week, while others only require you to be in the office once a month or so. Where you land on the spectrum, depends on your company culture, employee expectations, and individual team goals.
The rhythm of a hybrid schedule
Finding the daily, weekly, and monthly rhythm of a hybrid schedule is necessary to align company expectations with those of the employees.
Hourly: Do people have control over what hours they work in a day? Can they work super early, or super later? Can they come to the office for a quick meeting and then leave?
Weekly: Do people only need to come in a certain number of days per week? Are there specific days they should definitely be in the office?
Monthly: Is there an “all hands” day when everyone should be in the office together?
Quarterly: Do you have quarterly plans for everyone to catch up through team meetings, offsite, or other major events?
Types of hybrid work schedules
Groups/Cohorts
Group or cohort schedules are like different shifts in the office. You group employees according to their departments, teams, workload, or the kind of tasks they handle. Every group is then given a different on-premise schedule.
Why it may work for you: This schedule works best for departments that need close collaboration. By combining different departments into a single group, you can arrange in-person meetings more regularly and support cross-departmental collaboration.
Staggered
This is similar to the group/ cohort schedule with one key difference – employees come at a set time on office days to prevent overcrowding. This means extra work to better understand which shift works best for which teams.
Why it may work for you: If you have significantly decreased your office space or leased a coworking space, it’s best to create a staggered schedule to ensure it doesn’t get too crowded when employees come into the office.
Split week
With a split-week schedule, you assign 2-3 days every week for remote work and the rest of the days for in-office work. You can decide according to product area and function as to which teams should come into the office on which days.
Why it may work for you: This schedule works best for optimal collaboration among teams and ensures team members get enough facetime.
Week by week
Employees come to the office one week a month to connect with their colleagues and perform tasks that can be best done on-premises. Then they return back to remote work for the remaining weeks.
Why it may work for you: This schedule is best for teams that need occasional catch-ups and want to sync up on a monthly basis while still allowing employees to work in environments that work the best for them.
Remote-first
This schedule prioritizes remote work without completely giving up on on-premise arrangements. So while remote work is given priority, employees still have the option to come to the office.
Why it may work for you: It is ideal for companies where remote work is the primary orientation and default choice for all employees. It is also well suited for companies that have all the toolsets to go fully remote but they still want an on-premises option.
Office-first
Office-first hybrid work schedule prioritizes working in the physical office, while still offering some remote work options.
Why it may work for you: This works best for businesses that require their employees to come to the office regularly but their workforce still expresses a desire to work remotely, at least sometimes.
Pick-and-choose
Pick and choose is all about flexibility and granting autonomy to people by letting them pick the days they are comfortable coming into the office. Instead of giving employees a work schedule, you put the decision into their hands.
Why it may work for you: It works best for organizations that follow a digital-first approach and don’t necessarily need team members to have regular office catchups.
Importance of matching the hybrid work schedule with your intent
Hybrid work can mean different things to different people. You can only successfully implement it when your hybrid work schedule matches your intent and the expectations of your employees.
- If you only get a few hours together in the office, how do you want to spend it?
- What tasks/discussions are most important to do synchronously?
- What is the main goal of coming into the office – Do you want teams to sync up? Do you want people to connect socially? Do you want people to handle tasks that can only be done in the office?
- What do your team members want? Do they prefer to work from home more or would they want to come into the office regularly? How would they define work-life balance?
The team’s workload and the type of tasks that they handle should ideally make up for the main factors that guide your hybrid work schedule. Pay special attention to who is doing what work and the level of work that is assigned to them.
Balancing autonomy and the needs of the team
As much as you have in mind what your hybrid work schedule should look like, it may not be what works for your whole team.
You need open and honest communication with the team about what you hope for the team’s hybrid schedule and what their goals are when it comes to their own schedules.
Sure, offering your team complete freedom over setting up their schedule sounds really nice in principle, but it may not always work out for the company and it can also create diversity problems.
Fully remote employees may end up getting more diversity advantages as they would only be working from home, which can, in turn, make in-office employees feel excluded.
Moreover, letting employees determine when and if they want to come to the office can end up creating a siloed workforce where only a certain group of people show up in person at the office. This can alienate people who don’t always have access to transportation, child care, or caretakers.
Instead of just company executives making decisions about the hybrid work schedule, establish a democratic decision-making process involving all employees
Before you create a schedule for the team, make sure it balances autonomy with the needs of your team.
- What if some people want complete control of their schedule, but there are times when you do require them to come to the office for synchronous work?
- Can you force people to come in on certain days?
- Is it better to treat this as it comes up, or have a dedicated in-person day(s) and then cancel it later if it’s not required?
- Is this a company-wide policy, or is it team-by-team?
Details to work out for a hybrid work schedule
Straighten out all the minute details related to your hybrid work schedule so that your team knows exactly what is expected of them.
- Will the employees get a fixed seat or will the seating arrangement be flexible?
- Are employees expected to work for a fixed number of hours every day?
- How are team meetings and other activities managed?
- Is everyone expected to come at the same time or are there separate shifts?
- Where’s the central source of truth if it’s not the office? Where is your nucleus? Is it a collaboration tool or a digital workplace platform?
- Are there any stipends offered to employees for working from home? Or for those who have to commute?
- What are the main digital tools you will be adding to embrace hybrid work? Are they different from your regular digital suite of tools?
- Will you be training managers to better supervise a hybrid workforce
Go with a gradual roll-out
Here’s the thing – it is highly unlikely that you will get your hybrid work schedule right on your first try. Finding the perfect schedule is all about bridging in-office and remote work, and that can take quite some time.
The idea is to optimize your systems as you move ahead, learn from your mistakes, and constantly take feedback from your team in order to improve and establish a schedule that works for everyone.
Photo by Roman Bozhko on Unsplash
Hybrid work promises the best of both worlds. Employees benefit from working remotely while you still get the office for close collaboration and social interactions with their colleagues.
But the benefits of hybrid work fly out the window if you have a lousy hybrid work schedule.
The tension comes when you mismatch the intent and the schedule. If your intent is to make sure you have time to connect every week, but you let everyone pick their own schedule, you’ll rarely have days when everyone is in the office at the same time.
Creating a hybrid schedule is all about finding what works best for both synchronous (in-office) and asynchronous (WFA) work.
What is a hybrid work schedule?
A hybrid work schedule determines when employees are expected to be in the office and when they can work from wherever they want. Your hybrid work schedule lets people know which days or weeks you want people in the office.
Ideally, a perfect hybrid work schedule removes the challenges of remote work without giving up on all of its benefits.
Hybrid work schedules can exist on a big spectrum. Some simply offer a single flex day in a week, while others only require you to be in the office once a month or so. Where you land on the spectrum, depends on your company culture, employee expectations, and individual team goals.
The rhythm of a hybrid schedule
Finding the daily, weekly, and monthly rhythm of a hybrid schedule is necessary to align company expectations with those of the employees.
Hourly: Do people have control over what hours they work in a day? Can they work super early, or super later? Can they come to the office for a quick meeting and then leave?
Weekly: Do people only need to come in a certain number of days per week? Are there specific days they should definitely be in the office?
Monthly: Is there an “all hands” day when everyone should be in the office together?
Quarterly: Do you have quarterly plans for everyone to catch up through team meetings, offsite, or other major events?
Types of hybrid work schedules
Groups/Cohorts
Group or cohort schedules are like different shifts in the office. You group employees according to their departments, teams, workload, or the kind of tasks they handle. Every group is then given a different on-premise schedule.
Why it may work for you: This schedule works best for departments that need close collaboration. By combining different departments into a single group, you can arrange in-person meetings more regularly and support cross-departmental collaboration.
Staggered
This is similar to the group/ cohort schedule with one key difference – employees come at a set time on office days to prevent overcrowding. This means extra work to better understand which shift works best for which teams.
Why it may work for you: If you have significantly decreased your office space or leased a coworking space, it’s best to create a staggered schedule to ensure it doesn’t get too crowded when employees come into the office.
Split week
With a split-week schedule, you assign 2-3 days every week for remote work and the rest of the days for in-office work. You can decide according to product area and function as to which teams should come into the office on which days.
Why it may work for you: This schedule works best for optimal collaboration among teams and ensures team members get enough facetime.
Week by week
Employees come to the office one week a month to connect with their colleagues and perform tasks that can be best done on-premises. Then they return back to remote work for the remaining weeks.
Why it may work for you: This schedule is best for teams that need occasional catch-ups and want to sync up on a monthly basis while still allowing employees to work in environments that work the best for them.
Remote-first
This schedule prioritizes remote work without completely giving up on on-premise arrangements. So while remote work is given priority, employees still have the option to come to the office.
Why it may work for you: It is ideal for companies where remote work is the primary orientation and default choice for all employees. It is also well suited for companies that have all the toolsets to go fully remote but they still want an on-premises option.
Office-first
Office-first hybrid work schedule prioritizes working in the physical office, while still offering some remote work options.
Why it may work for you: This works best for businesses that require their employees to come to the office regularly but their workforce still expresses a desire to work remotely, at least sometimes.
Pick-and-choose
Pick and choose is all about flexibility and granting autonomy to people by letting them pick the days they are comfortable coming into the office. Instead of giving employees a work schedule, you put the decision into their hands.
Why it may work for you: It works best for organizations that follow a digital-first approach and don’t necessarily need team members to have regular office catchups.
Importance of matching the hybrid work schedule with your intent
Hybrid work can mean different things to different people. You can only successfully implement it when your hybrid work schedule matches your intent and the expectations of your employees.
- If you only get a few hours together in the office, how do you want to spend it?
- What tasks/discussions are most important to do synchronously?
- What is the main goal of coming into the office – Do you want teams to sync up? Do you want people to connect socially? Do you want people to handle tasks that can only be done in the office?
- What do your team members want? Do they prefer to work from home more or would they want to come into the office regularly? How would they define work-life balance?
The team’s workload and the type of tasks that they handle should ideally make up for the main factors that guide your hybrid work schedule. Pay special attention to who is doing what work and the level of work that is assigned to them.
Balancing autonomy and the needs of the team
As much as you have in mind what your hybrid work schedule should look like, it may not be what works for your whole team.
You need open and honest communication with the team about what you hope for the team’s hybrid schedule and what their goals are when it comes to their own schedules.
Sure, offering your team complete freedom over setting up their schedule sounds really nice in principle, but it may not always work out for the company and it can also create diversity problems.
Fully remote employees may end up getting more diversity advantages as they would only be working from home, which can, in turn, make in-office employees feel excluded.
Moreover, letting employees determine when and if they want to come to the office can end up creating a siloed workforce where only a certain group of people show up in person at the office. This can alienate people who don’t always have access to transportation, child care, or caretakers.
Instead of just company executives making decisions about the hybrid work schedule, establish a democratic decision-making process involving all employees
Before you create a schedule for the team, make sure it balances autonomy with the needs of your team.
- What if some people want complete control of their schedule, but there are times when you do require them to come to the office for synchronous work?
- Can you force people to come in on certain days?
- Is it better to treat this as it comes up, or have a dedicated in-person day(s) and then cancel it later if it’s not required?
- Is this a company-wide policy, or is it team-by-team?
Details to work out for a hybrid work schedule
Straighten out all the minute details related to your hybrid work schedule so that your team knows exactly what is expected of them.
- Will the employees get a fixed seat or will the seating arrangement be flexible?
- Are employees expected to work for a fixed number of hours every day?
- How are team meetings and other activities managed?
- Is everyone expected to come at the same time or are there separate shifts?
- Where’s the central source of truth if it’s not the office? Where is your nucleus? Is it a collaboration tool or a digital workplace platform?
- Are there any stipends offered to employees for working from home? Or for those who have to commute?
- What are the main digital tools you will be adding to embrace hybrid work? Are they different from your regular digital suite of tools?
- Will you be training managers to better supervise a hybrid workforce
Go with a gradual roll-out
Here’s the thing – it is highly unlikely that you will get your hybrid work schedule right on your first try. Finding the perfect schedule is all about bridging in-office and remote work, and that can take quite some time.
The idea is to optimize your systems as you move ahead, learn from your mistakes, and constantly take feedback from your team in order to improve and establish a schedule that works for everyone.
Photo by Roman Bozhko on Unsplash
