What’s Your Best Hybrid Work Schedule? (Guide, Examples, and Template)

Decide the right blend of in-office and remote days in your own Hybrid Work Schedule. With practical examples and how-to.

Grace Nguyen
Senior People Operations, FlexOS
Leveraging five years in HR and a keen eye for innovation, I help people-centric leaders choose HR tech that boosts employee experience and aligns with organizational goals.

March 27, 2024

What’s Your Best Hybrid Work Schedule?

Following long periods of working from home during the pandemic, hybrid work has increased recently, as shown by recent remote work statistics.

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Leading tech innovators like Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Salesforce embrace this working model that combines in-person collaboration with the freedom of remote flexibility.

“Hybrid is no longer just an employee perk but an employee expectation.” - Ranjit Atwal, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner.

According to Gartner, hybrid work is on a rapid incline, with the number of global knowledge workers choosing a hybrid schedule expected to leap from just 12% in 2022 to 39% by the end of 2023.

Nick Bloom – Stanford professor and the world's leading researcher on working from home (WFH), shared that he sees hybrid work as the dominant model of the future, predicting that 50% of jobs will shift to a hybrid schedule over the long run.

Bringing teams together one or more days per week to collaborate in the office sparks creativity, strengthens relationships, and nurtures company culture.

Empowering employees to work remotely on other days helps them find work-life balance and increases their productivity and enjoyment.

However, while a hybrid schedule can be a win-win for companies and people, crafting the perfect flexible schedule is an art and science with many nuances.

Understanding Work Models: Office, Remote, Hybrid

If you're looking to create a new working schedule for your team or company, it's important to consider what will support productivity and align with your goals and values.

Understanding hybrid remote meaning and its three common models that successful companies adopt can help is key:

1. Office-centric: People work (almost always) in the office
2. Remote-first or fully remote: People work (almost always) elsewhere
3. Hybrid (also called Hybrid Remote): People blend in-office and remote work

1. Office-Centric Work Model

In this model, people spend most of their workweek in the office, with one or no remote days. The focus is on in-person collaboration.

Advantages: The idea behind this approach is that people working together in person can build closer relationships through casual conversations, team lunches, or chances to gather outside work hours, often leading to deeper bonds.

Companies following this model believe they can maintain a sense of community and foster a collaborative atmosphere.

Limitations: The office-centric hybrid work model offers less flexibility for employees, especially remote enthusiasts who expect more autonomy and flexibility from their companies.

2. Remote-First or Fully Remote Work Model

In remote and remote-first models, employees work almost exclusively from home or other places and come to the office as needed in case of one.

Advantages: The remote-first work model offers companies and employees incredible flexibility and autonomy at work.

Limitations: A key drawback of this model is the lack of in-person collaboration and connection, which in certain teams, companies, and industries may still be important.

3. Hybrid Work Model

In the hybrid remote work model, people enjoy the best in-office and remote.
The model allows us to spend focused time working from home while we still have designated days to collaborate and do things that face-to-face facilitates well.

Advantages: The hybrid work model offers a range of benefits that, for many teams, even trump remote work.

Limitations: Not having a schedule for in-office work can mess up team dynamics and ruin impromptu interactions, negatively affecting teamwork and creativity.

Choosing a Hybrid Work Schedule

If, after considering the three working models, you believe a hybrid working model fits your team best, then you’ll want to discover the types of hybrid work schedules and which fits you most.

There are three key questions to find the best hybrid work schedule for your team or company:

1. What am I trying to accomplish by introducing a hybrid schedule?
2. How often do you want people to be in the office?
3. Who should choose which days people are in the office?

Your answers to all three questions strongly impact the schedule that best fits your needs.

Types of Hybrid Work Schedules

We see four key hybrid work schedules in the market, ranging from 4 days in the office to seeing each other only occasionally:

1. Weekly Hybrid Schedule
2. Alternating Week Schedule
3. Shift Hybrid Schedule
4. 50:50 Schedule

For all of these, the decision for which office days can be made by either:

• The company
• The manager
• The employee

1. Weekly Hybrid Schedule

In Weekly Hybrid Schedules, also called split schedules or cohort schedules, employees split their workweek between the office and remote days.

• Fixed Days: The manager or company decides which days employees should come to the office.
• Partial Choice Model: The manager or company decides on one or more fixed office days, and the employee chooses the final required office day(s).
• Full Choice Model: The employee chooses which days to go to the office within a minimal requirement set by the company.

2. Week-by-Week Schedule

3. Shift Hybrid Schedule

4. 50:50 Schedule

Who Decides on Office Days?

No matter the split, one question remains: who decides?

• In certain companies, the office days are set at the company level.
• In others, it’s set by business unit or department.
• Other companies set a minimum of days and leave it up to individual managers to decide which days work best for them.

Benefits of Hybrid Work Schedules

Some key benefits of hybrid work schedules include:

1. Increased Productivity
2. Better Work-Life Balance
3. Reduced Sick Days
4. Larger Talent Pool
5. Improved Job Satisfaction
6. Reduced Turnover Rates
7. Enhanced Sustainability
8. Smarter Resource Management and Cost Savings

How to Create a Hybrid Work Schedule

1. Understand your organization's needs and culture
2. Understand your team's needs and preferences
3. Design the most appropriate model
4. Make office days highly intentional
5. Pilot the hybrid work schedule
6. Document the model structure and clear guidelines
7. Build a healthy team meeting cadence
8. Roll out and refine the hybrid work schedule
9. Review the effectiveness, monitor success, and adopt

Challenges in Implementing Hybrid Work Schedules

Common challenges include:

1. Lack of clarity around policies and guidelines
2. Bias toward in-office employees
3. Collaboration issues
4. Weakening social connections and culture-building

Wrapping Up

A well-defined hybrid work schedule is the key to unlocking its full benefits for employees and companies.