The Experiences and Views of Employees on Hybrid Ways of Working

Anastasia Hanzis () and Leonie Hallo
Additional contact information
Anastasia Hanzis: Business School, Athens University of Economics and Business, 10434 Athens, Greece
Leonie Hallo: Business School, University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5000, Australia

Administrative Sciences, 2024, vol. 14, issue 10, 1-15

Abstract: The contemporary post-COVID-19 corporate environment of instant response and hybrid work settings motivates employees to learn to adjust their expectations. This new corporate working model incorporates flex locations and flex schedules by working at home 1–2 days per week and staying connected for non-urgent requests, even outside business hours. This work setting empowers employees to prioritize work accordingly and to accommodate the fluid schedules of their coworkers. As a result, this new hybrid workplace requires leaders and their teams to face new challenges in terms of communication, coordination, and team connection to remain effective. This research examines the experiences of employees in an SME that applied a hybrid work policy following the post-pandemic crisis, bringing additional complexity to their modern work system. This study investigates employees’ views on the changing work environment as important evidence for HR management to incorporate into future organizational practices. To understand the various principles at play and provide more granular results, this paper includes a business case study (N = 25) where semi-structured interviews were used to identify the views and concerns of employees regarding hybrid work settings. The scope of this case study was to collect empirical data regarding this new agile way of working while understanding participant thinking. The findings suggest that while there are clear benefits in terms of efficiency and flexibility in hybrid work settings, there are also challenges related to social interactions and non-verbal clues. This study enhances conceptual and empirical understanding and supports contemporary research on the future of work.

Keywords: hybrid work structures; SME; agile working; embodied presence; connected presence; digital social relations; digital communication (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: L M M0 M1 M10 M11 M12 M14 M15 M16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/14/10/263/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3387/14/10/263/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jadmsc:v:14:y:2024:i:10:p:263-:d:1500474

Access Statistics for this article

Administrative Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Nancy Ma

More articles in Administrative Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().