Hybrid Working

The Rules for Hybrid Work Were Always Made Up, thats the headline that the [New York Times] ran with back in May of 2022. At the time, people were just coming to terms with the end of the Covid-19 pandemic and the collective shellshock we all experience began to take hold. During lockdown, it wasn’t so apparent what had just happened.

Our friends and family around us were getting sick and dying, and governments across the world demonstrated they knew nothing, but alongside this giant social experiment we were all subject to, something else was also happening just beneath the surface.

We don’t need an office to work anymore. The cat was let out of the bag, the barn door had opened and the horse bolted, never to return. What are the rules for this sort of working environment? Well, they’re made up.

2023 comes around and the NIH, the US National Institute for Health, comes to the conclusion that hybrid working improves mental health compared to going fully-remote for a full return to in-office working. When this story appeared on the front page of Hacker News in October 2023, the comments were telling.

Everyone agrees with this sentiment, myself included. Here’s why:

• When I go into the office, I have an extra hour (or in my case, three hours) of my day taken from what would typically be my personal time.
• Work I work from home I can log off and immediately go for a run.

Interestingly, this article has vanished from the US Government’s archives during the Trump Administration, but this is a quiet blog and I am not prepared to delve into the sharp edges of that old chestnut right now.

It is now 2026 and most progressive workplaces have accepted this fact that people never want to return to the office full-time if it can be avoid, and a large proportion of the workforce will outright demand this arrangement.