The evolution of hybrid working happened in three phases. Hybrid 1 began in the early 2000s, when home internet became reliable enough to work from anywhere with a cable. Hybrid 2 was the forced remote work of the 2020 pandemic. Hybrid 3 is the flexible but often uncoordinated model that followed, built around hot desks.
The pandemic did not create hybrid work. It accelerated a trend that had been building for two decades. Whether a company adopts hybrid work is no longer the question. The question is how to do hybrid well, without damaging culture or performance.
“Hybrid work represents the biggest shift to how we work in our generation…it will require a new operating model, spanning people, places, and processes.”
— Satya Nadella, CEO & Chairman, Microsoft
How did hybrid working evolve?
Hybrid working evolved as technology untethered work from the office. Reliable home internet made remote work possible, WiFi and smartphones made it mobile, and the 2020 pandemic proved it could work at scale. Each phase gave employees more freedom over where they work, and each raised new questions about how teams coordinate.
By the time this history was published in November 2024, McKinsey had reported that 90% of companies were moving to hybrid working. Yet many companies were sleepwalking into a hybrid work model that could damage both their culture and their performance. The cause was a focus on managing hybrid real estate, their second largest cost, at the expense of their most valuable asset and largest cost: their people.
What was Hybrid 1?
Hybrid 1 was the first phase of hybrid working, which began in the early 2000s when home internet became good enough to use reliably. The work desk could be anywhere, as long as there was an electrical socket and an ethernet cable. Work could leave the office, but it was still tied to a fixed spot.
Hybrid 1.5 followed with WiFi. Employees were no longer tethered to a desk by a cable, but physical barriers remained until the BlackBerry, and later the iPhone, made it possible to work anywhere at any time. The iPad then catalyzed the bring your own device movement, and global investment in WiFi infrastructure went into overdrive.
Bring your own device (BYOD) is the practice of employees using their personal phones, tablets or laptops for work.
By the end of this phase, the tools of work were no longer tied to the office. The canvas was set for people to work anywhere.
What was Hybrid 2?
Hybrid 2 was the forced remote work of the 2020 pandemic. It was not hybrid as such, but an unexpected extension of the flexible working many people already knew. Because the infrastructure had been laid over the previous 20 years, it worked: white-collar workers kept their jobs and companies largely continued to grow.
It came at a cost. Remote workers often paid with their mental health. By the summer of 2020, the conversation had already turned to what work would look like after the pandemic, and it became clear that what companies and employees wanted above all else was flexibility.
Hybrid 2 proved several things:
- Employees could be trusted to get work done anywhere, and naturally wanted to keep the flexibility and autonomy they had gained.
- Companies could operate without all their expensive real estate, and employees worked just as hard at home as in the office.
- Companies could hire talent beyond the limits of an acceptable commute.
Research from Forrester put the scale in perspective: over half a billion people were moving to hybrid. There had not been a change like this to the way the world works since the Industrial Revolution, with huge implications for society, the environment, companies and workers.
What is Hybrid 3, or uncoordinated hybrid?
Hybrid 3 is the post-pandemic phase: flexible work where employees choose when to come in and the permanent desk has been swapped for a hot desk. It tries to give companies and employees the best of both worlds. Without coordination, though, it becomes uncoordinated hybrid, where people cannot tell where to work or who they will be able to work with.
In the office, the permanent desk has been exchanged for a hot desk. Hot desking means employees use any free desk rather than an assigned one (see hot desking and hoteling). An employee trades a dedicated desk for the ability to work flexibly. Because not everyone is in the office every day, desks are left empty 40-60% of the time. That presents a big opportunity to reduce real estate, and leaders noticed:
“For every 100 employees, only 60 seats are needed, which will significantly reduce the need for costly real estate.”
— Jamie Dimon, CEO, JP Morgan
The savings are so attractive that it is easy to think hybrid is all about managing office real estate. Hybrid 3 takes the tools and lessons of the past two decades and aims for a best-of-both-worlds model. But many hybrid plans focus on managing real estate, the tools of the trade, rather than empowering the people doing the work.
As work becomes more fluid, more variables enter the everyday experience, making it harder to coordinate and work with colleagues. Adam Grant has said that “the first and perhaps cardinal sin of hybrid work is a lack of coordination.” Many companies still try to solve these problems with facilities management tools built for the old office, which cannot tell employees where the best place to work is or who they can actually work with.
Why doesn’t forced hybrid work?
Forced hybrid, with 2-3 mandated office days a week, guarantees that employees mix in the workplace, but at a high price. It removes employee autonomy, usually delivers no real estate savings because everyone comes in on the same days, and shrinks the talent pool to people who can reach the office regularly.
Forced hybrid is a model in which the company mandates that employees are in the office on specific days.
The biggest issue is that employees just don’t like being told what to do. When people join a company, they are not only signing up for a role and a salary. They are signing up for that company’s way of life.
The alternative, uncoordinated hybrid, can become a mess without the right tools. Many companies are still struggling to find a cadence that works for everyone.
What comes after uncoordinated hybrid?
What comes next is a third way: hybrid work that keeps employee autonomy and real estate savings while protecting company performance. It depends on coordination, so that employees can meet the right people, in the right place, at the right time, and on treating the office as a tool for specific types of work.
Employees need the ability to coordinate with the right people, in the right place, and at the right time. They need a way to decide when to come together for a particular task. Business leaders, in turn, need to see the office as a tool they offer employees for certain kinds of work.
Seen this way, the office becomes part of the work stack, alongside video conferencing, productivity suites and project management tools. Each tool supports a different kind of interaction in a hybrid environment. The key is that each is fit for purpose. Understanding how the office is actually used, through workplace analytics, shows which work it is fit for. For a step-by-step plan, see the hybrid work strategy guide.
Frequently asked questions
What are the phases of hybrid working?
There are three. Hybrid 1 began in the early 2000s with reliable home internet, followed by Hybrid 1.5 with WiFi and smartphones. Hybrid 2 was the forced remote work of the 2020 pandemic. Hybrid 3 is the post-pandemic flexible, hot-desk model, which often becomes uncoordinated hybrid.
Did the pandemic create hybrid work?
No. The pandemic accelerated a trend that started in the early 2000s, when home internet became reliable. Because the infrastructure for flexible work had been built over the previous 20 years, companies could move to remote work quickly in 2020.
What is uncoordinated hybrid?
Uncoordinated hybrid is flexible work without a shared way to plan office time. Employees choose when to come in, but cannot easily see where to work or who will be there, so collaboration suffers and the office feels unpredictable.
What is the biggest problem with hybrid work?
According to Adam Grant, the biggest problem is a lack of coordination. When people cannot plan their office time around the colleagues they need, the benefits of flexibility and shared space are lost.
