42% of companies that allow remote work plan to take a hybrid approach — Here are 3 reasons why I think they are all wrong

Too many office-first leaders think by adopting a hybrid approach they can have the best of both worlds.

Their “lead by walk by” style of leadership and the “yeah we do remote too” attitude for recruiting.

Here are 3 reasons why I think hybrid is not working:

It's not inclusive

Those who work remote regularly will have less access to information due to in-person chats and meetings.

If leadership is office bound too, remote people will have fewer career opportunities.

Overall, they will feel excluded from the companies culture.

Hybrid Meetings are tedious and ineffective

Despite the technological progress we made, until we don't have holograms it will always be very tedious to attend a hybrid meeting as someone who is remote. Remote people don't get the body language and general mood in the room.

Office people are having a hard time including the remote people because they are not physically present.

In short, they are a waste of everyone's time.

Leaders have two entirely different employee experiences to handle

It's hard enough to lead office first or remote first. At least if you want to be good at your job as a leader.

But mixing both worlds? You are up for an epic fail. There will always be tension between both groups.

More problems to solve, very different needs to fulfill.

With a huge amount of discipline a hybrid approach could work, still most will fail eventually. Why not consider a remote first approach intead? You don't even have to close your office for that if you want to keep it. :-)

(Numbers are from the Remote Work Report by GitLab)