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June 27, 2025
Can Hybrid Environments Work Better Than In-Office?
While the debate over return-to-office (RTO) mandates rages, hybrid work environments are still seen as a potential solution.
“If leaders get hybrid work right, RTO doesn’t have to mean draconian policies, rigid workweeks, or uninspiring spaces,” wrote Cisco in a press release for its 2025 Global Hybrid Work Study. “Getting hybrid work right isn’t easy though.”
A wide range of retailers — including Amazon, Walmart, Apple, Target, Starbucks, Kroger, Nike, and Gap, as well as a wide range of technology firms supporting the retail industry — have faced significant pushback from employees with mandates to return to corporate offices.
Hybrid work environments can reduce real estate and building maintenance expenses for employers while lowering commuting costs and adding work/life balance for employees, Cisco noted.
Cisco’s study also found that as employees are being forced to head back to the office, many find value in face-to-face time. The survey of 21,513 employers and employees across multiple industries and 21 markets found 92% believing that community and collaboration are key aspects of office culture, while 85% agree that being in the office helps career advancement.
However, few welcomed the return to an everyday office presence. Of the respondents, 77% believed that rigid RTO mandates were driven by a lack of trust. Only 39% agreed that mandated office days boost productivity. And only 28% of employees see RTO mandates as beneficial to their well-being, compared to 42% of employers.
Showing potential recruitment risks, 78% of high performers would consider leaving a company if the work policies were not flexible enough, with only 34% preferring working from the office. Gen Z — described by Cisco as “tomorrow’s top performers (if not today’s)” — believed they were more productive working remotely versus older generations.
Cisco’s suggestions for making hybrid work more productive include investing in collaboration technology that is favored by Gen Z workers as well as better communicating the “whys” behind work models. Only 36% of employees felt that RTO mandates were explained clearly.
Fran Katsoudas, Cisco’s EVP and chief people, policy, and purpose officer, said, “It’s so important for leaders to really lead here and drive the conversation with their team members, asking, how do we work best as a team?”
In a column for Harvard Business Review, Peter Cappell, professor of management at the Wharton School, advised establishing “anchor days,” or days when teams must be in the office to drive collaboration. To support onboarding, suggestions included establishing programs to connect new hires with mentors and tying performance appraisals to mentoring or assisting new hires.
Cappell’s research team particularly stressed the importance of enforcing RTO policies. These include punishing employees for not coming in on designated days, not staying the full day, and not adhering to “cameras on” rules for virtual meetings. The researchers wrote, “When a prominent rule is widely ignored, it leads employees to think that other rules can be ignored as well.”
An MIT Sloan Management Review article highlighted the importance of making time for personally connecting at the start of virtual meetings; letting business teams, rather than C-level execs, determine in-person schedules; and measuring productivity by “outcomes” rather than working hours or keystrokes.
Discussion Questions
What are the obvious and less obvious shortcomings of hybrid work environments?
What solutions do you see to avoid full-time return-to-office mandates for corporate teams?
Poll
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Brad Halverson
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Not sure what this has to do with retail! But what I will say is that there are advantages and disadvantages to working at home or in the office, so hybrid is a sensible balance. But, as ever, every situation varies and there is no universally right answer.
Amen! But heck, at least it isnt about AI…that’s a winner in my book! 🙂
We repeat an important mantra of business and, in particular, of the retail business, and that is that one size does not fit all. As with everything else, “a sensible balance” is the operative phrase, with an accent on “sensible.”
The Cisco survey exposes the fundamental schism between employers and workers. There is a fundamental mismatch between what leaders think they’re solving (productivity, collaboration) and what employees actually perceive (control, distrust).
Different age cohorts amplify this gulf around work-life integration, digital communication, and professional identity. Why not architect work environments that optimize for different types of value creation? Face-to-face collaboration for creative problem-solving and relationship building, remote work for deep focus and individual productivity?
The companies getting hybrid right aren’t just accommodating different preferences – they’re creating competitive advantages. They can recruit from global talent pools, reduce real estate overhead, and tap into the productivity gains that come from matching work styles to work requirements.
The retail industry’s aggressive RTO stance might be a strategic blind spot precisely when they need digital talent most to compete with Amazon and other tech-forward competitors. They’re optimizing for yesterday’s competitive landscape while tomorrow’s workforce votes with their feet.
Your opening paragraph is very incisive. I tells a lot of truths.
I don’t think we need a “solution”, since I don’t see the mandates as a problem (See how simple that was?) Altho I’m not opposed to hybrid setups, per se, I fully support management deciding what works best….I think that’s what the “manage” part is about; if the employess don’t like it, they can leave (and if too many employees leave then said management will find out their decision maybe wasn’t optimal, won’t they?)
Honestly I’m puzzled by RW’s preoccupation with this issue: other than the (not necessarily unimportant but still) small portion of a retailer that works in an office, this isn’t really a retail issue. True, there’s been a loss of sales to many retailers in semi-deserted business districts, but if that’s the concern, it should be addressed directly.
This is a subjective subject because what works for one company is kryptonite to another. Personally, return to office or a hybrid variation would have worked best for me. My corporate days were in a retail buying office, so there’s that.
As an apparel buyer, there were so many things I needed to know, like how fabrics felt and draped; things that are impossible to see via a photo, a video call or even AI. And I certainly didn’t have room in my home to store the hundreds of samples I received each season.
RTO is a company by company decision, and like it or not, it’s not an employee decision to make.
Being of a certain advanced age, I was impressed by your reference to “kryptonite”, I doubt that many readers under 50 years of age know “kryptonite.” 🙂 🙂 🙂
I’m with you on the age thing!
It feels like there has been a new Superman movie every year since forever. There’s a new one out right now, which is good because I love the word kryptonite.
Current RTO practices need to be driven by common sense and for the needs of the company, the culture, the employee and the customers. Thats it. There’s no such thing as a once-size-fits-all scenario meeting the needs for every role and operation.
If some roles require travel to stores, or visiting clients or attending offsite meetings, then should it really matter if a commutes come from/to a home or an office? Nor should it matter if some roles have 2-3 days in the office, and the remainder can be best served on a desktop at home – to get work done, without interruption and meeting overload.
Amen
In hybrid work environments, maintaining consistent and clear communication between in-office and remote employees can be challenging. As a result, misunderstandings or information gaps are more than likely to occur.Moreover, remote employees may feel excluded from spontaneous office discussions or decisions made during in-person meetings.
The most stated shortcoming for remote work is the lack of human interactions and inability to build meaningful relationships and to collaborate effectively. As the article mentioned, that is not necessarily true for Gen-Z employees.
Many Gen-Zers grew up using smart phones and social media apps. They are fluent in making friends, building teams and working together virtually. Spending time face to face IRL simply isn’t as important or necessary to this generation – at least among fellow Gen-Zers.
When it comes to onboarding and initial training of younger employees (Gen-Z again), fully remote arrangement does make it hard for them to learn the non-written, non-verbal aspects of the job – especially in roles that require more institutional knowledge, intuition and understanding of nuances.
Remote, In-Person or Hybrid, I believe corporations should strive to provide a variety of options to suit the needs of employees in different roles, different stages of personal life with different work and personal priorities.
What happens when a Gen-Zer is offered a promotion that includes full-time office work?
Most of the preceding comments have been right on the bull’s eye. I can offer a prediction. In order to optimize office space and foster [invaluable] personal interaction, there will be mandated meet, greet and repeat day/days per week, but these personal-interaction days will take place in a space rented for the occasion. The space will not be a permanent space of the business. Departments can meet, in person, cross-functional departments will meet on a different day and maybe, once every so often, the leaders of the company will address all employees, including those who may be on the road by virtue of their type of work.
Clearly, this article and question simply ask for the obvious reply. Yes, the hybrid model is generally the best solution, since it often includes employee feedback as part of the decision model for the employer so that model is modified for everyone’s benefit.
I’ve come to believe the issue is NOT that office workers would rather work at home. The problem is that offices have become toxic places where standards, metrics, and various type of surveillance (or fear of them) leads employees to prefer to work ANYWHERE but the office. The ever-increasing rigorous demands for employees to work in specific ways prevents them from working in the ways most effective for them. Outside the office they can use their natural talents. Retail home and regional offices need to rethink the ways they have made offices into a place where employees don’t want to work and can’t succeed when they do work there.
Absolutes rarely are… Where one can work most effectively depends on the job and the employee. What works in one role won’t work in another.
I agree with my colleagues; why are we discussing this again?
However, I still hold my old-school opinion. Why would any employee not want to go to the office, given the opportunity? One becomes part of the team. One makes contributions, and the other collaborates randomly with colleagues. One gets visibility.
Most of the research I read finds that returning to the office, at least part-time, is far more productive than the remote workforce. More and more companies are returning to pre-pandemic work practices. Some are giving employees one day at home as a compromise. That said, I predict that companies and brands will return to 80% of their pre-pandemic levels for at least 80% of the workweek.
It was certainly beneficial during the pandemic to have remote or hybrid work as an option for some roles in the business world broadly, and within retailing specifically. Having this tool to manage teams and productivity in a crisis situation was critical to the ongoing operation of the business and the individual.
Keeping elements of remote work certainly makes sense, and allows a business to attract talent from remote locations that they otherwise could not convince to relocate to a corporate office location.
With all that said, however, there is a loss in learning and development opportunities when members of a team are working remotely, all or most of the team. The opportunity to interact, engage and learn from colleagues, leaders and others gets lost in ways that may not have fully become obvious, but over time there is certainly an impact on the loss of human interaction in driving business results, moving with speed, and providing learning and development opportunities to individuals and teams.
A hybrid approach, with planned remote work days, is likely the best scenario. A big responsibility, however, falls to leaders to monitor and confirm a team’s productivity on an ongoing basis, a challenge made more difficult when managing a remote team.
What I see missing in discussions of back to work is offering the, “What’s in it for me” for the employees.
Over my career I credit in person time both in office and with clients and partners with considerable business success. Doors opened. Job and other business opportunities presented without asking. Solutions arrived at more quickly. Long-term personal and professional relationships established.
It must be harder to progress in a career when you haven’t established the mutual trust that comes from in person relationships.
Someone leaves a company and brings you along. Someone remembers you from a prior interaction and invites you to a deal. Someone meets someone else who can help with a conversation you were having and makes an introduction. These instances, derived from in-person connections, are regular occurrences that reduce friction and improve personal and professional outcomes.
If the personal and career benefits of in-person work were shared, I see greater compliance with returning to the office.
Exactly, that is my experience.
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