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Making Hybrid Work More Permanent? Set Some Ground Rules

May 21, 2021 Contributor: Matt Cain

Use these common-sense approaches to combat anxiety and boost unity and efficiency for hybrid and remote teams.

By 2022, 25% of the global knowledge workforce will choose their home as the primary workplace, and 45% of the workforce will be working from home two to three days per week. Some employees are thrilled at the prospect. Others, not so much. 

For many employees, the novelty of working from home has already worn off, and they are anxious about the possibility of a permanent move to a hybrid work environment . You can help reduce their anxiety with some simple ground rules for virtual interactions and other work challenges that are unique to remote and hybrid work teams. 

Related webinar: Gartner 2021 Digital Worker Experience Survey Results: The Real Future of Work

Three ways to improve life for hybrid and remote teams

You will need to customise your guidelines to ensure a good fit for each team and for your corporate culture, but it helps to focus ground rules on improving three aspects of remote and hybrid teamwork.

No. 1: Team unity and health

Encourage your teams’ interpersonal unity, which can be especially difficult to maintain in a remote environment, but is critical to collective team engagement and inclusion. Managers need to be empathetic and approachable; it can make the difference between a great employee experience and a not-so-great one. 

Team members often get their primary work cues from manager behaviour, so make sure that managers model productive behaviour. For example, explicitly call out and illustrate the ability to time-shift—to accommodate a doctor visit, consult with a carpenter or care for a sick child—to reinforce the idea that we are all in this together.

View resources: The Future of Work Reinvented

No. 2: Time management and team coordination

Promote transparency around how teams use their time and be flexible in coordinating how work gets done, focusing on outcomes more than inputs. For example, agree on work outcomes and outputs but be flexible over how, where and when the team delivers those objectives. 

This strategy reinforces that team member participation is judged by their contribution, not their location. The idea of “collaboration equity” is critical to remove concerns—now and going forward—that in-office participants may be favoured due to their physical presence in a company-supplied workspace.

No. 3: Tools and equipment

Provide clear guidance on what technology and tools are available, and when to use them for what. Ensure that all equipment works properly, and provide opportunities for team members to improve their digital dexterity—but also make clear that employees must take ownership of their own digital proficiency as an essential ingredient in effective remote and hybrid work. 

Virtual meetings are a good example. The IT organisation is in charge of seamless provisioning of equipment and providing effective support services, but your ground rules should place responsibility on team members to know how to use all the relevant features and observe meeting best practices. 

Seven guidelines for happier hybrid and remote teams

The team dialogue around ground rules can help your team feel more invested and in control over their remote and hybrid work conditions. 

Here are seven examples of the kinds of common-sense guidelines you can set to make remote and hybrid team members more comfortable.

• Encourage team members to determine their own work/life harmony , creatively blending personal, family and work obligations as long as desired outcomes are met. Allow team members to negotiate the sharing of work obligations as needed.
• Be flexible on virtual dress codes and appearance . For example, allow individual preference to dictate each team member’s choice of video background—as long as those preferences are appropriate to the meeting objective and mood.
• Prioritise empathetic communication and listening. This applies to both team managers and executive leadership. Keep team members well informed about matters that affect them. Actively look for signs that someone is struggling or suffering from remote work fatigue .
• Allow team members to set their own work hours and workplace —as long as they fully participate in team activities and maintain appropriate work outputs. For example, team members can specify specific times for collaboration vs. individual work, but may need to prioritise overlapping time zones for collaborative work. 
• Let the team collectively determine response times with various collaboration modalities. For example, agree to respond within two hours to voice or chat but up to one business day for non-urgent emails. Agree that team members need not respond to non-emergency work matters outside of published working hours.
• Set limits on meetings. Team members should agree on the need for, timing, duration and location of team meetings . Meetings that include both remote and in-office team members should strive for equal-opportunity participation.
• Agree on remote collaboration standards. Make sure everyone has access to, and uses, endpoint devices, internet connectivity, and adequate sound, lighting and video capabilities to participate productively in virtual collaboration. Agree on the use of common features such as hashtags and @mentions.

The pivot to hybrid work environments is just beginning, and most organisations are figuring it out as they go along. These rules of the road are part of this journey, and enable individuals and teams to set their own paths while adhering to organisational guidelines. 

Not only do the guidelines enable co-creation and grass-roots innovation of hybrid work, they also help new team members quickly ascertain and embrace team cultural norms.

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Future of Work Reinvented

Designing a win-win for people and employers.

The priority of workforce issues, such as talent retention, hiring and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) , is rising among senior leadership . 

Pandemic-driven changes in work models have created a range of challenges and opportunities, including how best to attract, retain and engage employees and offer people the value and purpose they now expect from work .

As hybrid work becomes the norm , at least for many knowledge workers, concerns are growing that culture is being diluted. 

In recent Gartner surveys, CEOs rate culture as their biggest concern when it comes to in-office and work-from-home policies for knowledge workers, and HR leaders say the most challenging aspect of hybrid strategy is adjusting their current culture to be supportive of their workforce.

Evolve Leadership and Culture for the Hybrid Workplace

Use this road map to help your leadership team and chief human resources officer (CHRO):

reshape culture and leadership for a sustainable hybrid workplace;

repair the lack of connection to the organisation’s culture that many employees now feel; and

build your road map with immediate, 90-day and 12-month actions steps to:

• intentionally reinforce greater and more impactful ways for people to connect with your culture — both emotionally and through their day-to-day work and experiences; and
• ensure leaders take a more human (authentic, empathetic and adaptive) approach to overseeing people and work.

Download your road map to develop leadership and culture in a hybrid workplace

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Employees’ intent to stay or leave a job is a growing issue for many organisations, but it is only one thing people are questioning in light of the pandemic..

IT workers have a 10.6% lower intent to stay than the average employee — the lowest out of all corporate functions. (Only 29% have a high intent to stay.)

14% of employees say they would quit if forced to get vaccinated for COVID-19 as a term of their employment.

49% of job candidates who have received a job offer are considering at least two others at the same time.

65% of employees say the pandemic has made them rethink the place work should have in their lives.

52% of employees say the pandemic has made them question the purpose of their day-to-day jobs.

55% of employees and 65% of IT employees say that whether or not they can work flexibly will impact if they will stay in their jobs.

Employees tell us what they want the future of work to be: human, hybrid and equitable. Smart organisations will listen.

The proposition you offer your employees now — even as you plan and execute your reopening strategy — is what will determine how much and how well they contribute to your enterprise ambitions, especially around digital. We will continue to define work through terms like remote, distributed, automated and unbounded, but it is time to evolve the ‘future of work’ from a meme to a promise.

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Human-centric work design lies at the heart of a productive future of work — unless business leaders remain blind to the facts..

The strategic and operational intent of business leaders must be to deliver good outcomes for both employees and employers, provide and produce flexibility, and deliver and demand equitable treatment and opportunity.

Human-centric work design — featuring flexible work experiences, intentional collaboration opportunities and empathic management — can increase employee performance by as much as 54%.

55% of employees are high performers when provided radical flexibility over where, when and with whom they work versus 36% of those working 9 to 5 in the office.

If required to work fully on-site, 43% of employees and 47% of knowledge workers say they would seek other jobs.

82% of employees agree it is important that their organisation sees them as a person, not just an employee.

96% of HR leaders are more concerned about employees’ well-being today than they were before the pandemic.

Decoding the Great Resignation

Gartner Research Director Alexia Cambon talks about why employees are really leaving work — and explains the four key drivers of attrition.

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EP 1: Reinventing the Future of Work

When, how and where will employees return to work? Employers have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to reinvent the future of work. In this interview, Gartner experts discuss what is at stake for organisations as they make decisions about the way work gets done.

EP 2: Tackling Your Return to Workplace Strategy

What are companies doing to encourage (not require) vaccinations? How do you convince a skeptical CEO of the benefits of a hybrid work model? What qualities will make managers great in the future of work? In this interview, Gartner experts discuss how to tackle your return to workplace strategies and communications.

EP 3: Will Innovation and Collaboration Survive Hybrid Work?

Will your employees have trouble collaborating and innovating with colleagues in a hybrid work environment? Whether employees are in the office or remote, you can introduce 4 collaboration tools to help them succeed. In this interview, Gartner experts discuss the future of work and how to unlock innovation and collaboration.

EP 4: How to Offer Work Flexibility When Location Is not Flexible

While some organisations were able to shift workers to remote, what about employees who needed to be on-site? Whether on a manufacturing floor or in a retail store, some employees are not able to work from home. But organisations have begun to embrace flexibility and autonomy for these employees in different ways. In this interview, Gartner experts discuss new ways to offer work flexibility for on-site employees.

Get access to this level of insight all year long — plus contextualised support for your strategic priorities — by becoming a client.

Your Career

3 Tips for Success in a Hybrid Work Model

With offices in some parts of the world beginning to reopen, companies must determine what the future of work looks like for their organization. Read on to discover why many companies are considering a hybrid model for their reopening strategy.

We know that everyone’s personal situation is different, and what works for one individual, may not be ideal for another.  With that in mind, Gartner recently announced that we will begin to reopen our offices, starting in mid-June 2021 where it is safe to do so, however, all associates have the option to continue working from home through the remainder of the year. This allows our associates the opportunity to continue to prioritize their safety and well-being while still delivering on their personal and professional goals. With this transition from a fully remote workforce to a hybrid one comes new challenges. Below, we’re sharing our top 3 tips to help you be successful as you continue to adapt to new ways of working.

Schedule Frequent Check-Ins 

Whether you are in the office or working remotely, it is important to schedule consistent check-ins with your manager and your team. Wherever you decide to work, consistent check-ins will provide a space to address concerns and priorities even if you are not seeing your manager or team in person on a daily basis. 

Stay Engaged on Virtual Calls

In a hybrid model, your team may be split in their decision to work from home or return to the office, so your meetings may continue to be virtual instead of in person. Even if you decide to return to the office, it is still important to turn your camera on and limit multitasking during the call. It’s a good habit to look at the camera whenever possible – not just when you’re speaking.  Looking at the screen can give the impression you’re doing something else and not paying attention to the person speaking.

Create and Maintain a Schedule

Whether you decide to return to the office or continue to work from home, creating a schedule can help you stick to a normal routine. If you are opting to work from home, try to stick to a similar schedule that you would have if you were in the office. Sometimes when you work remotely, it’s easy to lose track of time because you are not ‘packing up for the day’ when you’re ready to head home, which can often lead to overwork. Thus, planning out your schedule can help prevent you from overworking, regardless of where you decide to work from. 

If 2020 taught us anything, it is how fast things can change. The hybrid work environment is new for many of us, our coworkers, and even our employers. Thus, it is important to stay patient with others as we all navigate this new work environment. There may be some bumps in the road and it may take some getting used to, however, the added flexibility can help you and your team  increase performance  and diminish the remote work fatigue that you may be experiencing. 

What advice do you have for employees who are switching to a hybrid work model? Share in the comments below. 

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How to Boost Employee Performance in a Hybrid Work Environment

The pandemic forced organizations around the world to adapt to remote or hybrid business models practically overnight. While employees typically appreciated the flexibility and autonomy that remote work provided, they also reported missing the human interaction and community often found when employees are together in person.

Recent research found that physical work locations where employees can gather, from indoor offices to outdoor sites, will continue to play a critical role despite the emergence of fully remote options.

"Most organizations and people want some version of a hybrid work experience where there's flexibility to work remotely, but [they want to] also come into a shared space when that's needed," said Helen Kupp, co-founder of Slack's research consortium, Future Forum, and co-author of How the Future Works: Leading Flexible Teams to Do the Best Work of Their Lives (Ascent Audio, 2022). "This means that we need to redesign how we work together rather than leaving it to chance."

Physical work locations also play a key role in assuring that employees receive all the support they need, both physically and mentally, from their employers.

"Work must become an inviting and inclusive destination where each employee can reliably seek mental well-being support, peer recognition and a sense of belonging," said Flore Pradère, research director of global work dynamics at JLL, a commercial real estate and investment management firm headquartered in Chicago. "It must also become the anchor of an organization, one that enables optimal performance and shared achievements." 

Impacting Performance 

Gartner's Hybrid Work Employee Survey found that the traditional location-centric model erodes performance and well-being, while a human-centric model drives performance, a result that favors hybrid workplaces.

"A human-centric approach puts the people in the office at the heart of decision-making about the workplace strategy and wider HR initiatives," said Alexia Cambon, research director for Gartner's HR practice. "The key is to balance the needs of the individual, the team and the organization."

Gartner's research shows that HR can increase employee performance in a hybrid work environment by focusing on the following three core elements: 

• Empathy-based leadership that understands employee performance in context.
• Intentional collaboration that is inclusive of both business and employee needs.
• Employee-driven flexibility that empowers employees to choose when, where and how they work. 

Empathy-Based Leadership

"Empathy is the most important managerial characteristic in the hybrid workplace," Cambon said. "Empathy is both a skill and a mindset that begins with a willingness to listen to employees to understand what they want and need in order to be successful."

While 89 percent of HR leaders in the Gartner survey agreed that managers need to lead with empathy in the hybrid environment, they found that organizational investment to enable empathy-based management was falling short.

"Managing with empathy requires a shift away from 'performance by input' toward 'performance by outcomes,' " Cambon said.

Empathy-based management has worked well for Drift, a global technology company headquartered in Boston that has successfully transitioned from a traditional (pre-pandemic) office-based business model to a flexible hybrid model, according to Dena Upton, chief people officer. At Drift, the HR team relies on frequent employee surveys to find out what's happening in the organization and uses that data to support recommendations for changes to HR policies.

"We have to be able to align our people metrics with business outcomes to get buy-in from senior leadership," Upton said.

Survey data was instrumental in persuading the leadership team to change the company's performance management system to focus on output rather than hours worked. "We found that giving employees the freedom of choice to decide when, where and how they work has improved performance," Upton said.

However, many organizations have managers who lack the skills and experience required to manage effectively in a hybrid environment.

"A blended learning approach [integrating asynchronous and synchronous learning] can be a powerful way for managers to learn empathy and other difficult skills like adaptability and resilience," said Todd Moran, chief learning strategist for NovoEd, a collaborative learning platform headquartered in San Francisco. "Face-to-face interaction provides an additional opportunity to practice and reinforce those skills with mentoring and coaching."

Moran views collaborative learning as a professional development tool that can help with employee engagement and retention in a hybrid environment. When companies invest in the growth of their employees, it sends a message that they care about them, which reconnects them to the organization and creates a sense of shared purpose, he said.

In addition, when determining what works best for an organization, "start by listening to your people and meeting them where they are," Kupp said. Notably, two-thirds of the leaders in a recent Future Forum survey were planning their hybrid strategy without input from employees.

Intentional Collaboration

Intentional collaboration is the idea that HR should be thinking about innovation by design in the workplace rather than relying on serendipity or spontaneity. "When you are intentional about how, when and where you meet as a team, the time together becomes an important source of innovation and creativity," Cambon said.

Intentionality is especially important in a hybrid world, Kupp said. "We have the opportunity to be more intentional about when we should do digital work, when we should come back together and how we can make the best use of our time. There are cases where I think face-to-face is uniquely better," she said.

"Organizations have an opportunity to rethink what the office is for," said Jacky Cohen, chief people officer at Topia, an HR technology company in San Francisco. "The 'why' should be the guiding principle behind every HR policy. We have to ask, 'Why are we getting together? What is the intention around connection?' "

After Drift changed its performance management system to focus on outcomes rather than input, it also changed the way the company uses office space. While there are still desks for those who want or need them, the office is largely collaborative spaces with conversational areas. When employees get together for scheduled events and activities such as sales bootcamps, bonding activities and building out new products, they always include a digital component so that employees who can't come into the office aren't excluded, said Upton.

"The hybrid model is a win-win as long as there is an authentic culture of connection and humanity to support it," said Chris French, executive vice president of customer strategy at Workhuman, a global performance management platform. "The office has to provide something that people can't get remotely. They miss the point of being in the office if they are doing the same work they would be doing at home. When the culture is strong, people can get together to work on goals, collective challenges, collaboration and strategy."

In a hybrid work environment, the primary purpose of the office "is for culture and connection," said Jennifer Dennard, co-founder and COO of Range Labs, a workplace collaboration software company in Denver. "Resentment comes up when people are required to come into the office and then spend the entire day in Zoom meetings, which they could have done working from home. There's no sense coming into the office when no one's there."

When employees have the opportunity to interact with senior leaders face to face, this can be a powerful incentive for people to return to the office. But this assumes that leaders will be there to meet them.

"You can't create two sets of rules, one for the senior level and one for everyone else," Dennard said. "There has to be some balance."

At NovoEd, the CEO stresses the importance of senior leaders being emotionally and physically present for their people. "He puts the 'ask' on the table," Moran said. "But he doesn't tell us how to get it done."

Employee-Driven Flexibility

Flexibility can be a powerful recruitment and retention issue, as evidenced by a recent Future Forum survey in which 70 percent of respondents said they were "willing to walk" if they didn't get the flexibility they want and need at work.

"Flexibility isn't just about location. It's about time and place. It's about flexibility of scheduling," Kupp said.

After Cisco's 2022 Global Hybrid Work survey found that hybrid work improved every area of employee performance, work/life balance, employee well-being and workplace culture, the company decentralized its scheduling process. As a result, team leaders and staff were empowered to make decisions together about when to come in to the office, said Francine Katsoudas, chief people, policy and purpose officer.

"This new flexible way of working will change the way that the offices will be used," she said. "The office will be the place to go for client meetings, team bonding events, brainstorming sessions and 'all-hands-on-deck' matters."

Kupp recommends creating team-level agreements that outline operating norms, core collaboration hours, and other rules and expectations while maintaining behavioral guidelines at the enterprise level.

"When teams decide what works best for them, it's more scalable than when there is one policy for the entire company," said Cohen, who added that at Topia, there is greater interest among engineers to get together face to face than there is for other teams, including HR, that are more distributed.

"You can't force people back into the office, but you can make the office more appealing by aspiring to be more flexible," Pradere said. "The role of HR is to work with managers and leaders to help them with this transition. People have to be willing to change and adapt."

Cambon added that "all experiments require course correction. What keeps me up at night is that we'll fail and that will be an excuse to revert back to the old way."

Arlene Hirsch is a career counselor and author based in Chicago.

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Top network practices to support hybrid work, considerations for the work-from-anywhere era.

Based on the 2021 Gartner ®  Work from Home survey, hybrid work will continue even after the pandemic ends. This report offers cloud and edge I&O leaders best practices that support this new WFA era, such as:

• Reinforcing operations by adopting minimum connectivity standards
• Enabling duel tunneling with secure web gateway (SWG)
• Using SD-WAN appliances to provide enterprise-grade security

Get more recommendations from Gartner ®

Gartner®, Top Network Practices to Support Hybrid Work, Karen Brown, Andrew Lerner, 8 April 2022 GARTNER® is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner®, Inc. and/or affilliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner® Hype Cycle for Hybrid Work, 2023

Get complimentary access* to this exclusive Gartner report, courtesy of Spacewell. Benefit from a 10-year outlook for workplace leaders on the top technology innovations and strategies that will shape the future of hybrid work.

*Limited-time offer (Hype Cycle research is standard reserved for paying Gartner clients)

Read your complimentary report:

Gartner first hype cycle of hybrid work.

“Global views on hybrid work best practices and supporting technology continue to evolve in 2023. Over the previous 12 months, the number of employees working in a hybrid way has increased, while the number of employees who work only at home or only in the office has decreased. Ongoing polarization of views on where work is best done and uncertain returns on investments in corporate space have forced  hybrid work to descend into the Trough of Disillusionment ,” says the first Gartner® Hype Cycle™ for Hybrid Work 2023.

What will get hybrid work out of the Trough of Disillusionment?

As explained on this  Gartner blog : “Many hybrid work practices were implemented in haste in 2020, and technology and management strategies from location-centric work do not work well in a hybrid world. Patchwork and piecemeal approaches are limiting the effectiveness of the leadership strategies and technology categories that will help make hybrid work successful. Empathy-based management,  workplace experience apps , and the smart hybrid office are critical innovations to accelerate hybrid work out of the trough.”

How do Gartner Hype Cycles Work?

The  Gartner Hype Cycle  provides a graphic representation of the maturity and adoption of technologies and applications, and how they are potentially relevant to solving real business problems and exploiting new opportunities.

Each Hype Cycle drills down into the five key phases of a technology’s life cycle.

• Innovation Trigger:  A potential technology breakthrough kicks things off. Early proof-of-concept stories and media interest trigger significant publicity. Often no usable products exist and commercial viability is unproven.
• Peak of Inflated Expectations:  Early publicity produces a number of success stories — often accompanied by scores of failures. Some companies take action; many do not.
• Trough of Disillusionment:  Interest wanes as experiments and implementations fail to deliver. Producers of the technology shake out or fail. Investments continue only if the surviving providers improve their products to the satisfaction of early adopters.
• Slope of Enlightenment:  More instances of how the technology can benefit the enterprise start to crystallize and become more widely understood. Second- and third-generation products appear from technology providers. More enterprises fund pilots; conservative companies remain cautious.
• Plateau of Productivity:  Mainstream adoption starts to take off. Criteria for assessing provider viability are more clearly defined. The technology’s broad market applicability and relevance are clearly paying off.

(Source: Gartner Hype Cycle for Hybrid Work)

Gartner Hype Cycle  for Hybrid Work 2023 | Analysts: Tori Paulman, Caitlin Duffy, Graham Waller, and Emily Rose McRae | Published July 12, 2023.

GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally, Hype Cycle is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product, or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

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Gartner Hype Cycle Report for Hybrid Work

‍ In this Gartner® Hype Cycle™, you will learn: 

• How technology can empower, connect, and augment hybrid workers. 
• The significance of rapid tool innovation—and the use cases you should be considering for better productivity and efficiency. 
• AI tools and technologies for performance management to retain and enhance workers.

Hear From Your Peers

“We are changing our culture for the better”

“AmplifAI is a great tool for performance enablement.”

“We've seen better attrition numbers and better ESAT numbers.”

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Gartner® Hype Cycle™ for Hybrid Work, 2023,Tori Paulman, Caitlin Duffy, 12 July 2023

Gartner is a registered trademark and service mark and Hype Cycle and Peer Insights are registered trademarks of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. 

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. 

Gartner Peer Insights™ content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences with the vendors listed on the platform, should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. 

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How hybrid work is reinventing management

by Olga Kokshagina and Sabrina Schneider, The Conversation

When it arrived en masse for the COVID pandemic, remote working was hailed as an arrangement that boosted work-life balance and slashed commuter-related misery and pollution. But it would appear its golden days are over.

Back to the office

Investment banker Goldman Sachs now requires employees to be at the office five days a week , while Google has recently requested workers to factor in office attendance in their performance review . Many companies have also adopted hybrid work policies that require staff to be in the office a minimum number of days. Even Zoom—an ambassador of remote working if there ever was one—now demands employees who live within 50 miles of its buildings to show up at least twice a week . The company has cited concerns about a lack of trust between employees who don't know each other or a lack of creativity in online settings.

Carrots at the workplace

For want of constraining policies, employers are resorting to various tactics to lure workers back, from financial incentives like return-to-office bonuses to tapping into their "fear of missing out" (FOMO), as seen with Bolt sharing office and party photos on Slack .

Such efforts come as overall office occupancy rates have remained rather stagnant over the last years. According to the 2023 Global Survey of Working Arrangements (G-SWA), only 67% of full-time employees work five days per week on-site .

But is that such a bad thing? Research yields conflicting results on the impact of remote work on productivity: basing themselves on standard efficiency measures , some studies show diminished productivity while others report heightened job satisfaction and efficiency thanks to less commuting time and more caregiving opportunities . In France, national research found that more remote-working opportunities could boost productivity by around 10% .

Autonomy and/or control?

Understanding tensions that may arise from working from home is crucial if companies are to work out which formula—full-time office presence, remote working or hybrid solutions—is best suited to them.

Our research , conducted with 30 managers from various organizations in France, Germany and Denmark pre- and post-COVID-19, examines how organizations navigate the complexities of online work and adjust their work practices accordingly. One response is the autonomy paradox , which was introduced in 2013 but gained more importance with hybrid work.

When grappling with the autonomy paradox, managers face the conundrum of whether to grant employees autonomy or to supervise them more closely. One option is to introduce high levels of autonomy, where managers empower employees to self-manage their output. For example, a provider of home nursing services in Holland, Buutzorg , created a trust-based, self-management system by allowing employees to access its IT platform to share knowledge, enter and compare their performance in a transparent manner.

Alternatively, employees may perform better when more closely managed. As one of the managers interviewed for our study stated:

"It is also about a standard that has been established. In the early years of digitalization, everybody expected you to react quickly [to any attempts to reach you]. I remember that I was disappointed when I did not reach someone on a Sunday afternoon. That has changed."

We have identified several other tensions such as dealing with the challenges of information overload and transparency versus increasing information availability and efficiency gains in handling data and information, the increased possibility of connecting with others online against a backdrop of loneliness. All of these tensions are more pronounced in hybrid work environments.

Adopting more fluid approaches

As hybrid work becomes more common, not only will these tensions appear more frequently and the number of individuals affected by them increase, but the nature of these tensions will also become more complex and interwoven. In light of this, we can expect coping mechanisms to shift from prescriptive rules to ongoing guidance allowing us to question the meaning of our job and be ready to regularly shake up our routine.

Take the car-sharing platform BlaBlaCar. On 1 June 2022, the company unveiled its new Paris headquarters and remote-working policy. More than a quarter of the firm's employees decided to work remotely full time, tapping into a dedicated budget to organize their own office space and to travel to the company's headquarters once a month. The remaining employees benefit from a hybrid solution, spending one to five days a week in the office space, designed to become "a living space where to exchange, a key element of social cohesion" (Muriel Havas, head of facilities).

Addressing these tensions demands a balanced approach. At an individual level, employees can refine their work habits, like scheduling breaks and managing online connectivity. Organizations, on their part, need to develop flexible frameworks that enable staff to creatively manage these challenges. This requires a shift from rigid policies and norms to more fluid and flexible approaches that empower employees to navigate paradoxes innovatively.

Overcoming the back-to-work debate

Given how differently individuals can respond to such tensions, effective coping mechanisms involve personalized support systems tailored to individual needs, including mentorship programs and flexible work policies. Managers must assess and enhance their team members' readiness to engage with digital technologies critically . For example, a French IT company Atos supported their employees in developing digital mindset through a voluntary upskill program . The program called the Digital Transformation Factory upskilling certification program was open to everyone from data scientists and highly skilled engineers to people in traditionally non-technical functions—70,000 people initially completed it.

Our findings suggest that the real issue isn't whether to return to physical offices or not. Instead, we should concentrate on creating work environments tailored to each individual's capability to navigate the complex challenges of hybrid work and their readiness to embrace these challenges. Consider an employee who thrives when given the freedom to choose their work location and hours—a reality which, on the surface, proves right to the managerial approach promoting worker autonomy. However, this same freedom can lead to a paradox where too much choice leads the employee to be overwhelmed and suffer from a lack of structure. A tailored solution could be a digital platform that allows the employee to set preferred working hours and locations, while also providing suggested schedules and check-ins to offer structure.

Managers need to assess and enhance their team members' paradox mindset and ability to deal with digital technologies . This implies not only providing the necessary tools and technologies but also ensuring that employees are prepared and supported to handle the complexities and contradictions these tools might bring up.

Provided by The Conversation

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4 Reasons Why Managers Fail

• Swagatam Basu,
• Atrijit Das,
• Vitorio Bretas,
• Jonah Shepp

Nearly half of all managers report buckling under the stress of their role and struggling to deliver.

Gartner research has found that managers today are accountable for 51% more responsibilities than they can effectively manage — and they’re starting to buckle under the pressure: 54% are suffering from work-induced stress and fatigue, and 44% are struggling to provide personalized support to their direct reports. Ultimately, one in five managers said they would prefer not being people managers given a choice. Further analysis found that 48% of managers are at risk of failure based on two criteria: 1) inconsistency in current performance and 2) lack of confidence in the manager’s ability to lead the team to future success. This article offers four predictors of manager failure and offers suggestions for organizations on how to address them.

The job of the manager has become unmanageable. Organizations are becoming flatter every year. The average manager’s number of direct reports has increased by 2.8 times over the last six years, according to Gartner research. In the past few years alone, many managers have had to make a series of pivots — from moving to remote work to overseeing hybrid teams to implementing return-to-office mandates.

• Swagatam Basu is senior director of research in the Gartner HR practice and has spent nearly a decade researching leader and manager effectiveness. His work spans additional HR topics including learning and development, employee experience and recruiting. Swagatam specializes in research involving extensive quantitative analysis, structured and unstructured data mining and predictive modeling.
• Atrijit Das is a senior specialist, quantitative analytics and data science, in the Gartner HR practice. He drives data-based research that produces actionable insights on core HR topics including performance management, learning and development, and change management.
• Vitorio Bretas is a director in the Gartner HR practice, supporting HR executives in the execution of their most critical business strategies. He focuses primarily on leader and manager effectiveness and recruiting. Vitorio helps organizations get the most from their talent acquisition and leader effectiveness initiatives.
• Jonah Shepp is a senior principal, research in the Gartner HR practice. He edits the Gartner  HR Leaders Monthly  journal, covering HR best practices on topics ranging from talent acquisition and leadership to total rewards and the future of work. An accomplished writer and editor, his work has appeared in numerous publications, including  New York   Magazine ,  Politico   Magazine ,  GQ , and  Slate .

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Proofpoint is Recognized as a 2024 Gartner® Peer Insights™ Customers’ Choice for Data Loss Prevention

Proofpoint is the only vendor evaluated to receive the Customers' Choice distinction, which recognizes vendors who meet or exceed market averages for Overall Experience and User Interest and Adoption

SUNNYVALE, Calif., April 11, 2024 – Proofpoint, Inc. , a leading cybersecurity and compliance company, today announced its recent recognition in the 2024 Gartner ® Peer Insights™ Voice of the Customer for Data Loss Prevention. Proofpoint was one of six vendors evaluated in the report and is the only vendor placed in the upper right “Customers’ Choice” quadrant, where the distinction is represented. Vendors in this quadrant, as rated by their clients, meet or exceed both the market average for “Overall Experience” and the market average for “User Interest and Adoption.”

The Gartner ® Peer Insights™ "Voice of the Customer" is a document that synthesizes Gartner ® Peer Insights' reviews into insights for IT decision-makers. This aggregated peer perspective, along with the individual detailed reviews, is complementary to Gartner expert research and can play a key role in the buying process, as it focuses on direct peer experiences of implementing and operating a solution.

Zero-day attacks and unpatched vulnerabilities often make headlines, but it’s people who are the root cause of most data loss incidents. In fact, Proofpoint’s inaugural  2024 Data Loss Landscape report , which examines global survey responses from ​​600 security professionals and data from the Proofpoint Information Protection platform found that over 70% of respondents identified “careless users” as a cause of their data loss, while fewer than 50% cited technical issues. This people problem is only aggravated as the macro landscape evolves, with more organizations embracing the cloud, hybrid work and workflow innovations like generative AI. It is for these reasons Proofpoint takes a human-centric approach to data loss.

The 2023 Gartner ® Market Guide For Data Loss Prevention (DLP) , which recognizes Proofpoint as a Representative Vendor, notes that when identifying a DLP solution, security and risk management leaders should “invest in a DLP solution that can understand the full lineage of the data, identify baseline activities for the user, and compare subsequent actions to the baseline activity by gathering contextual clues about the who, what, when and where of the data.” The Proofpoint Information Protection platform is the only solution that brings together the telemetry of content and user behavior across the most critical DLP channels—email, cloud applications, endpoint, and web. Our unified console supports the modern ways people work, and includes all policy management, workflows, alert management, classification sophistication, reporting, and dashboards that administrators and analysts need for accurate DLP and quick incident resolution.

“Proofpoint is a customer-first organization, so this Customers’ Choice distinction is for us an acknowledgment that they trust us as their preferred human-centric security partner to defend their data against careless, malicious and compromised users,” said Tim Choi, group vice president, product marketing, Proofpoint. “The reviews and ratings about Proofpoint Enterprise Data Loss Prevention (DLP) on Gartner ® Peer Insights™ reinforce our market leadership and provide us with valuable feedback as we continue to transform the DLP space.”

Proofpoint Information Protection is deployed to 46 million+ users worldwide, making Proofpoint the second largest DLP vendor and trusted by the world’s biggest brands. As of March 15, 2024, Proofpoint customer feedback shared on Gartner ® Peer Insights™ includes:

• "Proofpoint has provided an amazing suite of tools for us to utilize in our cybersecurity routines, including the DLP module. The DLP piece specifically helps us narrow down PII and other information that may be unencrypted or leaking from various sources in our environment. With this tool we are able to keep a close eye on anything and everything outgoing and provide the proper training if there are outliers in the company." – Cybersecurity Engineer, Transportation Industry
• “Being able to easily customize and edit rules that fit our organization is one of the main things that make Proofpoint's DLP product amazing. Also the support that Proofpoint offers when it comes to all their products is amazing, they help in every way possible.” – IT Security and Risk Management, Healthcare and Biotech Industry
• “Proofpoint is an industry leader for a reason. Their blend of products and expertise can satisfy any companies security needs. Their DLP product is very customizable yet leaves us feeling secure knowing data is not leaving through unapproved channels.” – Engineer, Finance (non-banking) Industry
• “Proofpoint provides consistent engagement and positive interactions. The technology is feature rich, and their response times are quick.” – Manger, Cybersecurity, Travel and Hospitality Industry
• "Proofpoint email DLP has worked great out of the box and includes all the templates we need to protect sensitive data." – Security Engineer, Travel and Hospitality Industry

For more on Proofpoint’s Enterprise Data Loss Prevention solution, please visit: https://www.proofpoint.com/us/products/information-protection/enterprise-dlp

For more on Proofpoint’s Information Protection platform, please visit: https://www.proofpoint.com/us/products/information-protection

Additional Resources:

Proofpoint ranked #2 globally in the Gartner Research Market Share: All Software Markets, Worldwide, 2022 Neha Gupta, Yanna Dharmasthira, et al, 14 April 2023 Total Worldwide Software Revenue for Enterprise Data Loss Prevention Products and Regions, 2021-2022 (Millions of U.S. Dollars) 

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U.S. and internationally, and PEER INSIGHTS is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved.

Gartner ® Peer Insights TM content consists of the opinions of individual end users based on their own experiences, and should not be construed as statements of fact, nor do they represent the views of Gartner or its affiliates. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in this content nor makes any warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this content, about its accuracy or completeness, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

About Proofpoint, Inc.

Proofpoint, Inc. is a leading cybersecurity and compliance company that protects organizations’ greatest assets and biggest risks: their people. With an integrated suite of cloud-based solutions, Proofpoint helps companies around the world stop targeted threats, safeguard their data, and make their users more resilient against cyber attacks. Leading organizations of all sizes, including 85 percent of the Fortune 100, rely on Proofpoint for people-centric security and compliance solutions that mitigate their most critical risks across email, the cloud, social media, and the web. More information is available at www.proofpoint.com .

Connect with Proofpoint: Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube

Proofpoint is a registered trademark or tradename of Proofpoint, Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries. All other trademarks contained herein are the property of their respective owners.

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Making Hybrid Work More Permanent? Set Some Ground Rules

May 21, 2021 Contributor: Matt Cain

Use these common-sense approaches to combat anxiety and boost unity and efficiency for hybrid and remote teams.

By 2022, 25% of the global knowledge workforce will choose their home as the primary workplace, and 45% of the workforce will be working from home two to three days per week. Some employees are thrilled at the prospect. Others, not so much. 

For many employees, the novelty of working from home has already worn off, and they are anxious about the possibility of a permanent move to a hybrid work environment . You can help reduce their anxiety with some simple ground rules for virtual interactions and other work challenges that are unique to remote and hybrid work teams. 

Related webinar: Gartner 2021 Digital Worker Experience Survey Results: The Real Future of Work

Three ways to improve life for hybrid and remote teams

You will need to customise your guidelines to ensure a good fit for each team and for your corporate culture, but it helps to focus ground rules on improving three aspects of remote and hybrid teamwork.

No. 1: Team unity and health

Encourage your teams’ interpersonal unity, which can be especially difficult to maintain in a remote environment, but is critical to collective team engagement and inclusion. Managers need to be empathetic and approachable; it can make the difference between a great employee experience and a not-so-great one. 

Team members often get their primary work cues from manager behaviour, so make sure that managers model productive behaviour. For example, explicitly call out and illustrate the ability to time-shift—to accommodate a doctor visit, consult with a carpenter or care for a sick child—to reinforce the idea that we are all in this together.

View resources: The Future of Work Reinvented

No. 2: Time management and team coordination

Promote transparency around how teams use their time and be flexible in coordinating how work gets done, focusing on outcomes more than inputs. For example, agree on work outcomes and outputs but be flexible over how, where and when the team delivers those objectives. 

This strategy reinforces that team member participation is judged by their contribution, not their location. The idea of “collaboration equity” is critical to remove concerns—now and going forward—that in-office participants may be favoured due to their physical presence in a company-supplied workspace.

No. 3: Tools and equipment

Provide clear guidance on what technology and tools are available, and when to use them for what. Ensure that all equipment works properly, and provide opportunities for team members to improve their digital dexterity—but also make clear that employees must take ownership of their own digital proficiency as an essential ingredient in effective remote and hybrid work. 

Virtual meetings are a good example. The IT organisation is in charge of seamless provisioning of equipment and providing effective support services, but your ground rules should place responsibility on team members to know how to use all the relevant features and observe meeting best practices. 

Seven guidelines for happier hybrid and remote teams

The team dialogue around ground rules can help your team feel more invested and in control over their remote and hybrid work conditions. 

Here are seven examples of the kinds of common-sense guidelines you can set to make remote and hybrid team members more comfortable.

• Encourage team members to determine their own work/life harmony , creatively blending personal, family and work obligations as long as desired outcomes are met. Allow team members to negotiate the sharing of work obligations as needed.
• Be flexible on virtual dress codes and appearance . For example, allow individual preference to dictate each team member’s choice of video background—as long as those preferences are appropriate to the meeting objective and mood.
• Prioritise empathetic communication and listening. This applies to both team managers and executive leadership. Keep team members well informed about matters that affect them. Actively look for signs that someone is struggling or suffering from remote work fatigue .
• Allow team members to set their own work hours and workplace —as long as they fully participate in team activities and maintain appropriate work outputs. For example, team members can specify specific times for collaboration vs. individual work, but may need to prioritise overlapping time zones for collaborative work. 
• Let the team collectively determine response times with various collaboration modalities. For example, agree to respond within two hours to voice or chat but up to one business day for non-urgent emails. Agree that team members need not respond to non-emergency work matters outside of published working hours.
• Set limits on meetings. Team members should agree on the need for, timing, duration and location of team meetings . Meetings that include both remote and in-office team members should strive for equal-opportunity participation.
• Agree on remote collaboration standards. Make sure everyone has access to, and uses, endpoint devices, internet connectivity, and adequate sound, lighting and video capabilities to participate productively in virtual collaboration. Agree on the use of common features such as hashtags and @mentions.

The pivot to hybrid work environments is just beginning, and most organisations are figuring it out as they go along. These rules of the road are part of this journey, and enable individuals and teams to set their own paths while adhering to organisational guidelines. 

Not only do the guidelines enable co-creation and grass-roots innovation of hybrid work, they also help new team members quickly ascertain and embrace team cultural norms.

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Defeated CEOs are now conceding hybrid working is here to stay—a year after 62% said they expected a full-time return to office by 2026

Good news for those hoping to cling on to working from home: After a year of cracking down with rigid return-to-office mandates—and instilling fear in those who upheaved their life during the pandemic—defeated CEOs are now finally accepting that hybrid working is here to stay. 

KPMG surveyed U.S. CEOs of companies turning over at least $500 million and found that just one-third expect a full return to the office in the next three years.

So it’s official: Leaders who believe that office workers will be back at their desks five days a week in the near future are now in the small minority. 

It’s a complete 360 on their stance last year, when 62% of CEOs surveyed predicted that working from home would end by 2026.

At the time, 90% of CEOs even admitted that they were so steadfast on summoning staff back to their vertical towers that they were sweetening the pot with salary raises, promotions, and favorable assignments to those who showed face more.

But now, bosses are backtracking: Nearly half of CEOs have concluded that the future of work is hybrid—up from 34% last year. 

What’s more, a sizable chunk of CEOs aren’t just embracing working from home on Fridays, they’re going one step further and ditching the workday altogether.

KPMG found that a third of CEOs are exploring the feasibility of a four-day week at their firm.

Why the change of heart?

Many CEOs have dedicated the last year to shaking off pandemic-era habits of working from home and calling staff back to the office, but their mandates have been met with resistance.

Deutsche Bank’s decision to outright ban staff from working at home on a Friday and the following Monday has not been taken lightly by staff—a large number of its 90,000-strong workforce have reportedly started posting critical remarks on the company’s internal messaging board to make their distaste for the new set-up known.

Amazon is perhaps the most documented example of how ugly the RTO battle can get: Around 30,000 employees signed a petition protesting the company’s in-office mandate, and more than 1,800 pledged to walk out from their jobs to take a stand.

Research has echoed that nearly half of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated, and 29% of companies enforcing office returns are struggling with recruitment.

It perhaps explains why, as KPMG’s data shows, CEOs are now waking up to the fact that the future of work is probably the happy medium of hybrid.

“CEOs have realized that forcing people back into the office can only go on for so long,” Amrit Sandhar, CEO of &Evolve an employee engagement consultancy tells Fortune.

“With Gen Z over the next few years making up, in some cases the majority of the workforce, how long can CEOs insist people come into the office, when people are choosing to work remotely?

“We are at the threshold of a new dawn and trying to hold on to past mindsets will have a direct impact on the caliber of people you attract going forward.”

Lewis Maleh, CEO of the global executive recruitment agency Bentley Lewis, has already witnessed a U-turn to more flexible job ads.

“I’ve noticed a definite rise in job postings advertising remote or hybrid work,”  Maleh tells Fortune .

“We haven’t worked on any searches that require the candidate to be in the office five days per week in the past six months globally.”

“The shift demonstrates the cementing of hybrid work models, as CEOs increasingly recognize flexibility as a key factor in attracting and retaining top talent.”

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