Although remote and hybrid work modalities existed to a lesser extent before 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic of that year they multiplied, greatly increasing the adoption of these forms of work. Five years after the start of this pandemic, what has happened to remote and hybrid work modalities? Has your company maintained them or has it returned to a completely in-person modality? What benefits and disadvantages do we have with these work forms? Saving Changes...
Senior Projects Manager | Field & Marten AssociatesNew Westminster, British Columbia, Canada
Veronica, in our organization, we maintained a hybrid model: 2 days from home, 3 days from office. We rotate every week. Saving Changes...
Sanjay SinghProject Manager / Business Process Improvement GuruMaharashtra, India
Hello Verónica,
Five years post-pandemic, remote and hybrid work aren’t just surviving they’ve, evolved. Many companies, including ours, now embrace structured hybrid models (e.g., 3 days in-office for collaboration, 2 remote for focused work). Fully remote roles remain common in global tech, while some industries (like finance) push for office returns.
Benefits? Productivity surges for deep work (GitHub’s 2023 data shows 27% faster code reviews remotely), access to global talent, and better work-life balance. Challenges? Onboarding juniors is harder, spontaneous creativity dips, and ‘proximity bias’ can skew promotions.
Our company uses hybrid as a 'tool' not a rule with async-first practices (like Loom updates) and quarterly in-person sprints to bond teams. The future isn’t 'remote vs office', but flexibility with intention: designing work around outcomes, not attendance sheets.
How’s your team navigating the shift? Any creative solutions you’ve seen?
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1 reply by Verónica Elizabeth Pozo Ruiz
Jun 19, 2025 2:47 PM
Verónica Elizabeth Pozo Ruiz
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Thanks, Sanjay, it's a good overview of remote work conditions and particularities. It's true that there are some challenges that appear, but now technology helps a lot to overcome them, with special platforms that allow collaborative work, share documents, and communicate effectively in a written or oral manner.
You make a great point, emphasizing that flexibility is a thing that matters.
Hello Verónica,
Five years post-pandemic, remote and hybrid work aren’t just surviving they’ve, evolved. Many companies, including ours, now embrace structured hybrid models (e.g., 3 days in-office for collaboration, 2 remote for focused work). Fully remote roles remain common in global tech, while some industries (like finance) push for office returns.
Benefits? Productivity surges for deep work (GitHub’s 2023 data shows 27% faster code reviews remotely), access to global talent, and better work-life balance. Challenges? Onboarding juniors is harder, spontaneous creativity dips, and ‘proximity bias’ can skew promotions.
Our company uses hybrid as a 'tool' not a rule with async-first practices (like Loom updates) and quarterly in-person sprints to bond teams. The future isn’t 'remote vs office', but flexibility with intention: designing work around outcomes, not attendance sheets.
How’s your team navigating the shift? Any creative solutions you’ve seen?
Thanks, Sanjay, it's a good overview of remote work conditions and particularities. It's true that there are some challenges that appear, but now technology helps a lot to overcome them, with special platforms that allow collaborative work, share documents, and communicate effectively in a written or oral manner.
You make a great point, emphasizing that flexibility is a thing that matters. Saving Changes...
Remote and hybrid work have definitely evolved since 2020. Many organizations adopted hybrid as a long-term model, balancing flexibility with collaboration. It boosted work-life balance and talent reach, though some miss in-person energy. Success depends on trust, tools, and clear goals.
Saving Changes...
Marc KaneAssociate Director | Digital Core - Oracle| AccentureLos Angeles, CA, United States
Flexibility has become a core expectation for knowledge workers. Companies that don’t offer some hybrid option struggle to attract top talent. Remote work is no longer novel. It's operationalized, with better tools (Slack, Teams, Miro, etc.), remote-first onboarding, and virtual team-building practices. Executives are split: some miss the old way of “management by walking around,” while others have leaned into performance metrics and outcomes over hours logged.
Employers have turned to a hybrid model, e.g. 2 days WFH and 3 days at the office.
I believe that this model combines the best of both worlds and ensures that we build (strong) bonds with our colleagues and team members. As Simon Sinek states in his book "Leaders eat last", we humans are social beings in need of real face to face interaction. Saving Changes...
Luis BrancoCEO| Business Insight, Consultores de Gestão, LdªCarcavelos, Lisboa, Portugal
Five years after the pandemic, remote and hybrid work have not only endured — they’ve evolved into distinct strategic choices, shaped by sector, culture, and leadership mindset.
The Data Speaks Clearly:
- In 2024, around 60% of workers globally were fully back in the office, 30% in hybrid models, and 10% fully remote.
- Yet preference data shows a different story: 60% of eligible employees would rather work in a hybrid model, and only <10% want to return full-time to the office.
- In Portugal, for example, hybrid work grew 35% in one year, and 84% of professionals report greater productivity when working from home part or full-time.
Strategic Implications:
Remote and hybrid are no longer just “benefits” — they are structural choices that shape performance, retention, culture, and equity.
Hybrid work, in particular, is emerging as a systemically sustainable model: it supports flexibility without sacrificing collaboration, reduces turnover (by up to 33% in some studies), and requires deliberate coordination mechanisms to work well.
Tension Point:
Interestingly, some large corporations (especially in finance and tech) are forcing returns to office, citing collaboration loss.
Yet studies show that productivity hasn’t dropped, and employee engagement is often higher in hybrid environments — when well-managed. So the issue is not remote work itself, but how leadership adapts, supports, and builds trust.
Our Role as Project Leaders:
As project professionals, we must rethink planning, communication, and engagement in distributed contexts.
Hybrid projects require new rituals, clear visibility, and psychological safety — but they also open the door to inclusive global talent and resilient delivery models.
My key takeaway:
The future of work is not about a location.
It’s about autonomy with alignment, trust over control, and purpose over presence.
"The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not Eureka! (I found it!) but rather, 'hmm.... that's funny...'"
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