Hybrid Schmybrid — Don’t Believe the Workplace Hype

Rob Kubiak
3 min readAug 25, 2021

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The Hybrid Workplace. Return to Office dates being pushed back. The Great Resignation. Full-time remote work. Flexible working. Future of the Office. Employee wellness. Cybersecurity. Digital Nomads. Vaccination policies. Work-Life Balance. Every couple of weeks since March 2020 and the Six-Foot-Office, it seems there’s a new buzzword or phrase dominating the headlines and right now it appears that Hybrid Working is all the rage. I mean, it does makes sense, as it’s a happy medium between full-time remote work and full-time in-office work, with workers expected to work an average of 1.6 days/week from home or remotely while spending the rest of the time in the office. At the end of the day, companies want to provide a consistent and vibrant employee experience whether that’s WFH, remotely, hybrid or entirely in the office.

That said, we’ve all been hearing about the Great Resignation and the growing rift between employee’s desire to work remotely and employers who are anxious to get their staff back in the office. Bridging that gap will require some level of flexibility and compromise from both parties, however, it might be more difficult to summon employees back than we originally thought.

For example, here are some of the more interesting things workers are willing to forfeit to be able to work remote full-time:

· 15% of workers would take a 25% pay cut if that meant they were offered full-time remote work

· 40% of workers stated they would give up health insurance benefits

· 50% said they give up social media for a year

· 52% would give up Amazon for the next year

· 34% would give up their right to vote in all future local & national elections for life

For more stats https://www.meetbreeze.com/blog/employees-give-up-benefits-salary-remain-remote/

Furthermore, one of the more interesting sites we’ve seen is MakeMyMove.com, which is sort of an aggregated list of various cities across the country offering incentives to remote workers to relocate. I mean, perhaps the idea of moving to Stillwater, Oklahoma, to work remotely sounds like your jam — they’ll give you $7,500 cash, throw in a free month of martial arts classes (and uniform) and $2k of coffee. Or maybe you’ve always wanted to find out what John Denver was making such a fuss about, and West Virginia is more your speed — head to Morgantown, and they’ll pay you $12,000 along with another $8,000 in various gifts and incentives and all that they ask in return is that you ‘must love the outdoors’!

Additionally, the Wall Street Journal also recently reported a growing trend amongst fully remote employees and they’ve found that many of them are secretly working two jobs to double their salary of the sly. I mean, why just be okay at one job, when you can double your salary and be mediocre at two, all the while your employer is none the wiser?

Regardless of what sort of work policy your organization employs, the workplace needs to be an environment that feeds and supports connections and relationships — whether that’s virtually, in-person or a combination of the two. Business leaders have a real opportunity to transform work right now and navigate the ongoing uncertainty. We’ll continue learning as circumstances evolve and, in the meantime, let’s take some of the lessons we’ve learned thus far to create a workplace environment that works for the one thing that’s truly going to drive your business forward — your employees.

Rob Kubiak, Wurkwel Ventures, LLC

Rob Kubiak is Director, Research & Analytics for Wurkwel Ventures, LLC, a holding company consisting of a portfolio of businesses that focus on the needs of corporate tenants when expanding, relocating or downsizing their office space. He is a marketing professional with over fifteen years of experience in a variety of facets of marketing, sales, business development and research & analytics. When he’s not expounding on what to expect from the workplace of the future he enjoys consuming copious amounts of HI-CHEW candies and gummy bears while taking continuing educational courses.

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