More than four years since the initial Covid-19 lockdowns, it appears that for many knowledge workers the five-day commute is a thing of the past. Hybrid is here to stay.

“We’ve moved to a new status quo that is hard to change,” says Benjamin Friedrich, an associate professor of strategy at the Kellogg School who researches labor and personnel economics. “You have to make a really strong case if you want a full return to office because there’s really strong evidence in favor of hybrid.”

This week, we’ll hear from Friedrich about why, rather than reflexively calling workers back to the office, many companies would be wise to focus their efforts on designing and codifying better hybrid policies instead.

“Both remote and face-to-face work have distinct advantages and disadvantages that are context-specific and that impact workers differently,” says Friedrich. “A hybrid schedule works when it captures the value of proximity and flexibility and minimizes remote’s downsides.”

Recognize the benefits of in-person work

The value of fully remote work has significantly decreased since the pandemic, Friedrich says. Safety is no longer employees’ top priority and now people want to feel more connected to their work and their colleagues. As a result, the total share of employees who want to work only from home is relatively low.

Moreover, studies show that face-to-face interaction fosters creativity and innovation, and helps workers complete their tasks faster—which are compelling reasons to bring people back to the office. “A lot of those benefits are lost if you’re fully remote,” he says.

In particular, Friedrich cites research on the value of proximity, which found that coworkers who work face-to-face receive more feedback and have more opportunities to learn from each other informally than remote colleagues.

This plays out in relationships between junior and senior colleagues, Friedrich explains. For example, if a junior colleague needs advice on a difficult task, he may feel intimidated asking a senior colleague for help if they haven’t interacted much. However, if they’ve met informally—like seeing each other at lunch—it is much easier to start up a conversation about work. Multiplied over the course of weeks, months, and years, this fosters learning across the organization and can translate social capital into long-term career growth for the junior colleague.

Recognize the benefits of flexibility

All this said, flexibility is one pandemic-era benefit that workers want to keep. And most knowledge workers have come to expect some form of hybrid work. Acknowledging this in your stated policies can be critical for talent recruitment and retention.

“The pandemic created a complete change that gave people time to think about their purpose in life, how they think about priorities, and the role that their job plays,” Friedrich says.

As a result, some workers now are no longer willing to make sacrifices that previously went unquestioned: like daily commutes. In fact, some workers are willing to accept lower pay for flexibility. On average, companies that offer a hybrid model with some opportunities to work from home have raised pay less over the past year.

As several studies on companies have found, employees might use remote time for focused work, leading to productivity increases. Still, other studies have found negative effects, so these gains are not guaranteed. “If there’s some flexibility,” Friedrich says, “the cost to the business might be worth it for other productivity gains.”

A better policy

So with both the downsides and benefits of remote work in mind, how can managers codify a smart, effective hybrid policy?

Because the right policy for any given organization will be specific to its needs, Friedrich advises leaning heavily on internal data, specifically, employee sentiment data and performance data. “You can track, for example, if collaboration is less effective with people who haven’t had the same access to training and mentoring because they started while everyone was remote.”

Not only will this data help to inform your policy (and help you adjust it over time), it will also help with communication as the policy is rolled out.

“With internal data, you can make a convincing argument based on the facts that are true in your organization,” he says. “Saying ‘everybody’s doing it’ or citing media articles won’t help your case as much as knowing what works and doesn’t in your context.”

For more details, including about who benefits the most from hybrid work, read the full article in Kellogg Insight here.