Hybrid companies come in many shapes. In July 2021, as vaccinations rolled out and economies tentatively opened up, organizations were deciding what their new normal would look like: remote-only, a hybrid working model, or everyone back in the office. For some, the pandemic accelerated a move to flexible working that had been building for years. Others wanted to return to a traditional office setup as far as possible.
This roundup records where well-known companies stood in July 2021, from fully remote Coinbase to office-first Netflix. It reflects their plans at that time, not their later policies.
Where did companies sit on the hybrid spectrum in 2021?
In July 2021, companies were spread along a spectrum from fully remote to fully office-based. Remote-first companies such as Coinbase and Airbnb let employees choose where to work. Hybrid companies such as Google, Fujitsu and Facebook invested in spaces for teamwork. Netflix stood out as office-first. Culture, more than logistics, decided where each one landed.
Going hybrid is about more than the when and the what. It is about company culture. How much freedom employees get, how prescriptive the leadership style is and how much a company prizes innovation all influence where it falls on the hybrid spectrum. Some companies focused on teamwork and collaboration, others on flexibility or wellbeing. For the traditionalists, it was about getting back to the office and seeing coworkers again.
Source: CoScreen
A few terms help read the examples below:
- Fully remote: there is no company office; everyone works from home or another location of their choice.
- Remote-first: remote work is the default and employees are not expected to work from the office, though some offices may exist.
- Hybrid: employees split their time between the office and other locations.
- Office-first: remote work is available, but in-office work is preferred.
Which companies chose a remote-first or fully remote model?
For many businesses, the pandemic showed how effective a remote-first setup can be. By July 2021, fully remote companies were dropping the traditional office to give employees the freedom to work from home, while remote-first companies let employees choose where they work. Coinbase, InVision, Equinix, Buffer, GoDaddy, Airbnb, Doist and Close were examples.
Coinbase: a no-office headquarters
Cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase closed its main office headquarters for good. It encouraged employees to work remotely or at smaller, local offices. Company founder and former Airbnb engineer Brian Armstrong saw it as a democratizing move that ensures equal career opportunities for all employees, wherever they are based.
An official statement said: “Closing our SF office is an important step in ensuring no office becomes an unofficial HQ and will mean career outcomes are based on capability and output rather than location. Instead, we will offer a network of smaller offices for our employees to work from if they choose to.”
InVision: international reach and employee happiness
InVision had a director of Employee Happiness, a sign of how seriously it took keeping employees happy. The company ran a house swaps channel that kept employees aligned and connected.
InVision was globally distributed. As one of its benefits, employees could swap locations to work and travel to new places across the globe. The package also included medical insurance, a free gym membership and options packages meant to give employees a feeling of company ownership. The company built its fully remote culture around hiring hard-working and humble people.
Equinix: drop-in workspaces
Multinational Equinix had a remote-first model built on flexibility. Staff had no location requirement, though drop-in co-working spaces were available in certain locations. A long-term IT strategy based on flexible digital infrastructure meant the company already had the technology for remote working when the pandemic hit.
Equinix was also looking at improving its in-office experience. That included hybrid meetings where your Zoom call launches automatically as you walk into your pre-booked meeting room, the kind of experience room booking software is built to support.
Buffer: solving remote loneliness
In 2020, Buffer found that 20% of remote workers struggle with loneliness. The company put measures in place to help its fully remote employees with loneliness and the difficulty of unplugging. One of them was a monthly stipend for every remote employee to work from coffee shops, where the different energy and setting help ease loneliness.
GoDaddy: empowering employees outside work
GoDaddy let employees take a part-time job outside their working hours, and helped them pursue it. Any employee with a hobby they wanted to turn into income could get help from the company. GoDaddy also offered opportunities to build careers through education.
Its flexible work schedule was designed so workers were not overwhelmed. Employees could schedule their working hours around caring for pets and children.
Airbnb: letting employees take charge
“Employees are in charge, not companies,” said Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky.
With an agile and decentralized business model, Airbnb fully embraced flexible working, allowing employees to work from wherever they chose. The logic was simple: employees wanted it, so Airbnb needed to offer it to attract the best people. As Chesky put it: “The employees and the talent market is going to drive working flexibility, not the companies. Because if a company says these are our rules, they’re not going to have the talent.”
Doist: asynchronous working hours
Doist worked hard to give employees an entirely flexible experience as a global, remote-first company. New parents could bring their baby and partner to the company retreat. Employees chose their coworking office based on their preference. Working hours were entirely flexible, as long as employees clocked 40 hours by the end of each week.
Close: a focus on deliverables
Close, a fully remote company that helps businesses convert traffic into leads and revenue, did not focus much on working hours. Instead, it looked at each remote employee’s deliverables every week. Close gave employees realistic projects, deliverables and deadlines, and trusted them to work on those deliverables independently. It also offered a monthly $200 coworking stipend and two annual team retreats.
Which hybrid companies focused on teamwork?
In 2021, Google, Fujitsu and Facebook took hybrid approaches built around teamwork. Each put infrastructure in place to bring teams together and restart collaboration and connection: Google with reconfigurable pods and campfires for hybrid meetings, Fujitsu with a network of hubs and satellite offices, and Facebook with offices reserved for culture building.
Google: campfires for hybrid meetings
Google has long been a workplace innovator. When the Googleplex launched in 2003, its open plan offices, bold common spaces and free food and transport looked like a window into the future.
In 2018, Google commissioned a team of space architects, engineers, builders and tech specialists to redesign the workplace around three principles: work can happen anywhere, workplaces are more than desks and meeting rooms, and employees’ needs are changing constantly.
Its post-pandemic ideas focused on hybrid working. They included flexible team pods that can be reconfigured quickly for different needs, and campfires for hybrid meetings. A campfire is a seating circle mixed with vertical displays that show remote attendees dialing in, to put all participants on an equal footing.
Fujitsu: creative hubs and satellites
Before the pandemic, Fujitsu’s culture prized long hours in the office and face-to-face work. Eighteen months later, 85% of employees favor either a remote or hybrid workplace model. To support the change, the company committed to an ecosystem of workspaces for different needs, made up of hubs, satellites and shared offices.
- Hubs support creativity, co-creation and chance encounters between colleagues.
- Satellites let teams coordinate shared projects using video conferencing and face-to-face meetings.
- Shared offices give employees easy-to-reach space in urban centers for independent work, online meetings or virtual training.
Facebook: the office as a place for culture building
Facebook also chose a hybrid, remote-first model. It planned for many employees to work off-site most of the time, and to come into the office for culture building, training, key meetings and events.
Facebook was also hiring remotely, particularly for senior staff who need less in-person training or career development support. CEO Mark Zuckerberg saw it as a boost for diversity, because he could recruit outside traditional tech communities such as Silicon Valley and San Francisco: “Enabling remote work is going to be very positive on that front toward creating more broad-based economic prosperity.”
Which companies built hybrid work around employee wellbeing?
In 2021, Intel, Microsoft and Coda put employee wellbeing at the center of their hybrid plans. Intel tackled meeting fatigue with meeting-free Fridays. Microsoft set out a clearly communicated, phased return to the office. Coda made its meeting cadence lighter and more inclusive for people spread across locations, and added social time to reduce isolation.
Intel: meeting-free Fridays
Intel embraced hybrid working and made cultural changes to ease the burden on remote workers. To combat meeting fatigue, it introduced meeting-free Fridays. It also set meeting start times at ten past the hour to make meetings shorter, and encouraged days off to disconnect.
Microsoft: a phased return to the office
Microsoft set out a phased return to the office in stages, ranging from remote-only to fully open campuses. Even with fully open campuses, hybrid work and flexibility would remain the norm. Microsoft described a research-driven approach to designing agile workspaces that encourage collaboration and meet the varied needs of its teams.
Coda: inclusive meetings
Online collaboration firm Coda embraced the culture change that mandatory remote work forced on it. It made its meeting cadence lighter and more inclusive for employees in different locations. Meetings were all held at 1 pm, and recurring meetings were banned on Wednesdays to leave time for focused work, for changing work location or for other life commitments. Coda also introduced a company-wide social hour, with quizzes, cocktail-making and online games, to help with isolation.
Which companies stayed office-first?
Netflix was the clearest office-first example in July 2021. The world’s largest subscription streaming service came out against the flexibility trend and expected employees back in the office that fall. Even so, CEO Reed Hastings accepted that hybrid work was here to stay for most companies.
Netflix went against the grain. Hastings expected that most companies would end up with employees working “four days in the office while one day is virtual from home.” Kadence’s webinar on three steps to a successful hybrid workplace looks at what that middle ground requires.
What did these hybrid work model examples have in common?
The 2021 examples show that organizations were working out their place on a spectrum from 100% remote to a traditional office. Hybrid ranged from office-first, where remote work is available but the office is preferred, to default digital, with no location requirement but co-working spaces in certain locations. Every point on that spectrum needed changes to both space and culture.
Offices were changing to support hybrid working models. They needed to support collaboration, make room for chance encounters and provide quiet space for people who need or prefer to work from an office. Company culture was changing too. Remote workers risked becoming isolated, burnt out or left out, and companies needed to take care to prevent that.
Any hybrid working model also needs digital infrastructure. Desk booking software lets employees reserve office space when they need it, making their in-office experience smoother. It also gives organizations data on how space is used, so they can plan the workplace from historic and forecast usage rather than guesswork. Kadence’s guide to flexible office models compares these approaches in more detail.
Frequently asked questions
Which companies went fully remote or remote-first in 2021?
In July 2021, examples included Coinbase, which closed its San Francisco headquarters, as well as InVision, Equinix, Buffer, GoDaddy, Airbnb, Doist and Close. Each let employees work remotely, with some offering co-working spaces or stipends.
Which companies chose a hybrid model with offices for teamwork?
Google, Fujitsu and Facebook were leading examples in 2021. Google designed reconfigurable team pods and campfires for hybrid meetings. Fujitsu built hubs, satellites and shared offices. Facebook planned for employees to come in for culture building, training, key meetings and events.
Which company was office-first in 2021?
Netflix. In July 2021 it expected employees back in the office that fall, although CEO Reed Hastings accepted that hybrid work was here to stay for most companies.
What is the difference between remote-first and hybrid?
In a remote-first company, remote work is the default and employees are not expected to come to an office. In a hybrid company, employees split their time between the office and other locations, and the office is kept for specific purposes such as collaboration.
What does a company need to support a hybrid working model?
It needs offices that support collaboration and quiet work, a culture that keeps remote workers included, and digital tools such as desk booking that let employees reserve space and give the organization data on how space is used.