Mandate or hybrid? The key is intentional design
New research shows that people overestimate how often they actually interact with each other while in the office
IN THE past year, several prominent organisations returned to requiring full-time work from the office. In January, Amazon Singapore did so as part of a global policy shift. More recently, Grab and the National University of Singapore followed suit.
Yet, the experience of returning to a full five-day office week has so far not been stellar. When JPMorgan Chase enforced mandates in 2023, employee engagement dropped, according to internal metrics reported by Bloomberg. Attrition rose and productivity in non-client-facing teams dipped.
This creates a paradox: Organisations are retreating from the post-pandemic hybrid consensus despite the clear downsides from doing so. Why?
The fear of the invisible employee
To understand this shift, we should look beyond the unpopularity of mandates and recognise employer anxiety. For them, the risks of a dispersed workforce appear vivid and quantifiable.
Take innovation as an example. A 2023 internal review at Cisco, cited in MIT Sloan Management Review, revealed a decline in cross-functional innovation projects during their remote period of 2020 to 2022. Remote engineers reported fewer spontaneous interactions. Promotion rates for junior staff also dropped, as managers struggled to assess soft skills without in-person observation.
And then there is the issue of trust. In July 2025, the case of Mumbai engineer Soham Parekh sparked a firestorm on social media after he was exposed juggling four full-time remote jobs at startups, earning tens of thousands of US dollars monthly while delivering minimal work. While an outlier, such stories fuel executive paranoia. They create a form of “guilt-by-association” mindset where invisible work is assumed to be non-work.
Furthermore, there are cultural concerns. For many organisations, the employment relationship is cemented by shared physical presence. Employers may see commuting and face-time as a necessary signal of loyalty and commitment – and this vanishes in a fully remote setup.
“My new research demonstrates that in unstructured workplaces, people overestimate how often they actually interact with each other while in the office. This means that the benefits of advice, creativity, and information from these interactions are also uncertain. ”
The hybrid compromise
Employers are not acting out of malice; they are acting out of concern for culture, innovation and oversight. However, their solution – rigid full-time mandates – is an overcorrection that ignores the reality of modern work.
The concerns are valid, but they can be addressed without requiring employees to return to the office five days a week. The answer lies in intentional hybrid design.
My new research demonstrates that in unstructured workplaces, people overestimate how often they actually interact with each other while in the office. This means that the benefits of advice, help, creativity, and information from these interactions are also uncertain.
Many have experienced the irony of commuting an hour each way, just to sit in a meeting for 30 minutes. This destroys morale without solving the innovation or trust deficit.
Designing for intentionality
If employers want the benefits of in-office time without the attrition of the mandate, they must treat office time as a strategic asset.
Employers that are successful in doing so will not need to have employees be at the office during the entire work week.
Here are practical steps to structuring hybrid arrangements that maintain the benefits of working from the office and minimise the downsides of remote work:
Standardise office days. Align the weekdays in which whole teams are present to ensure overlap and maximise interactions. Sources such as the Flex Index that tracks workplace flexibility trends identifies poor overlap as a major problem of hybrid arrangements. Avoid this.
Schedule purposeful meetings. Convene team sessions and informal rituals – coffees, lunches, brainstorms – to make the most of time together in the office.
Design physical spaces for collaborative work. Shift from away isolated desks towards collaborative set-ups to ensure that employees can see and work with each other while in the office.
Address “proximity bias”, where more visible employees are promoted faster. If you have a hybrid set-up, mandate equal office time for employees of the same rank and ensure evaluations are based on outcomes to the extent possible.
Clearly explain the purpose behind attendance. Require each manager to articulate “why, when, and how” of in-person gatherings to align presence with purpose. Be specific. Employees will be much more understanding if explanations avoid abstract generalities and platitudes about “synergy”.
Overall, employees value flexibility. Employers value innovation, culture and oversight. These are not mutually exclusive goals. By embracing smart, intentional job design, firms can address their valid concerns without compromising retention If employers do so, hybrid arrangements can be successful.
The writer is associate professor of organisational behaviour at Insead
