Feature
With hybrid work models becoming a mainstay across organizations today, employees may start to notice that their working conditions differ (slightly or significantly) from those of their colleagues.
Tensions indeed appear to be rising between those who choose (or are required to) work in the office and those who are remote. One study from Checkr found that 45% of in-office workers feel they should make more money for the same work than remote employees, and another study from Gallup found that remote workers feel more disengaged from their companies and coworkers in 2023 than they did in 2022.
To keep it all from boiling over (and negatively affecting culture), organizations must find ways to build an employee experience that reduces friction between remote employees, hybrid employees and their on-site counterparts.
A Workforce Divided
Physical distance, differing working hours, lack of access to one another and poor collaborative tools can all contribute to the alienation in-office and remote workers feel toward one another, particularly when their working arrangement isn’t entirely their choice.
Amy Casciotti, vice president of human resources at TechSmith, said she’s fielded frustration from both in-person and remote employees.
“Before hybrid really became a thing, we would hear [from our remote employees] that they didn’t feel like they were on an equal footing.” she explained. However, with hybrid work now more prevalent, it’s now employees in the office who feel like they’re constantly stuck on Zoom calls with their remote colleagues.
“We have [in-office employees] that really struggle with being stuck on a computer and not having a chance to interact with someone else,” Casciotti said.
Adding to the challenge is the fact that remote workers are having a hard time trusting their colleagues in-office.
Melissa Romo, author of “Your Resource Is Human: How Empathetic Leadership Can Help Remote Teams Rise Above,” said that while writing her book, she discovered a lot of fear over reputation management from remote employees.
“Employees who are home-based felt that their in office employees were not honest with them or they were sort of scheming against them when they weren't in the room,” Romo said.
Related Article: 5 Common Causes of Digital Workplace Friction
Creating a Frictionless Experience for Both Parties
Who’s right and who’s wrong is hardly the matter in this situation, and Jim Kalbach, chief evangelist at Mural, says it’s on organizations to address these tensions as they arise in a hybrid work environment.
Organizations no longer can rely on the physical office to bring people together, he said. They therefore must focus on more intentional collaboration through the right techniques and attitudes.
One way EX leaders can support this effort is by mapping out the hybrid employee experience, Kalbach said. By modeling out the day-to-day tasks and actions remote and in-office employees take, leaders can better understand where and when negative interactions play out.
“Mapping could be a tool to help you take a cognitive walkthrough of some of the friction,” he said. “We can see what might be some of the points of intervention or the triggers and levers that we could use to actually resolve.”
It can also be used to gather best practices from other teams.
Casciotti and Romo both pointed to a number of other practices that can dial down frustrations and create more respect between colleagues. For Casciotti, equipping conference rooms with the technology to enable better hybrid meetings has proven to be helpful for some companies.
“Those who are in the office that want to be able to be here and see other people can take that Zoom call from in a conference room, and if there's a few employees in the room as well as those on Zoom, all have equal stature in that meeting,” Casciotti said. “It really has changed the feeling in-office employees have about having a part of a remote meeting, but for remote employees, it's also been a way better experience.”
Some video conferencing platforms are rolling out similar features to support hybrid meetings, including Zoho, which just announced its new “Zoho Cliq Rooms.”
For Romo, the advice is for teams to put themselves in the remote worker’s shoes and not assume that if you’re not on-site, you’re not working or working as hard.
“You can’t just assume they’re laying in a hammock.” She stressed the importance of empathy and relationship building. “In the age of proximity bias, we need to be sure we’re really and truly trusting each other, even though we don't see each other all day.”
Related Article: Are Energy Vampires Sucking the Life out of Your Organization?
Conference
Sep
16
HR Tech Conference Las Vegas 2025
Register
Conference
Oct
27
Gartner HR Symposium/Xpo Orlando 2025
Register
How Much Can Blanket Policies Help?
Because no hybrid work model looks the same, it’s practically impossible to establish one kind of policy that could reduce friction for all — though some have been trying.
At one end of the spectrum, we’ve seen an increasing number of organizations allowing individual teams or departments to set their own policies and schedules. At the other end, some employers have instituted blanket policies by enforcing a minimum number of days in the office or, more drastically, bringing everyone back full time.
While either of those could reduce the number of arguments over perceived advantages or flexibility, there are downsides to both.
A study from Gallup found that hybrid workers are most engaged when their team (vs. the company) collaboratively sets work schedules and policies.
“You can [create blanket policies] to create consistency, but what you give up is having a more high fidelity work arrangement,” Romo said, explaining that leaders often need their teams to have different levels of flexibility to get results.
Casciotti said that at TechSmith, they try to balance having universal guidelines while also giving teams some flexibility within the policies they set, for the sake of avoiding “chaos.”
“One of the ways we do this is by reaching out to our staff and checking in every six months to a year,” Casciotti said. “We’re asking, ‘How are things going with what we've set in place? What do you feel is right for the company?’”
The big takeaway here is, there is no one-size-fits-all. And while that may not be the answer companies seek, listening to employees, getting an honest pulse on what is brewing inside the culture and remaining flexible and responsive to different needs and realities are all critical components of making this new work reality a success.
