Companies Wrestle With Hybrid Work Plans
- Awkward Meetings and Midweek Crowding

A mix of office and remote work brings new hurdles, from determining the number of days employees spend in-person to how to conduct meetings; the Mondays and Fridays problem

Big U.S. companies are discovering that “hybrid” work comes with plenty of complications.

As employers firm up plans to bring white-collar workers back into offices while still allowing them to do some work at home, many are encountering obstacles. Companies are grappling with what new schedules employees should follow, where people should sit in redesigned offices and how best to prevent employees at home from feeling left out of impromptu office discussions or being passed over for opportunities, say chief executives, board directors and others.

The insurer Prudential Financial which expects most of its roughly 42,000 employees to work in the office half the time starting after Labor Day, wants to make certain not all staffers choose to stay home Mondays and Fridays and then work in the office midweek. At the travel company Expedia Group executives are trying to figure out how to have in-person meetings that don’t disadvantage those who aren’t in the room. Other employers, including the software company Twilio predict that the new era of work could lead to shuffling between teams, with staffers gravitating to bosses who embrace their preferred styles of working.

Hybrid work “is going to redefine expectations, rules, permissions.”

Prudential has been redesigning its office space floor by floor and repurposing most of it for meeting rooms, collaboration and open space so people will be more likely to interact. Mr. Falzon says he insisted on adding video capacity in more small meeting spaces, not just conference rooms, so people working from home won’t feel excluded.

Like many employers, the company is reducing its physical footprint so there won’t be available desks for people who want to go to the office more frequently, with exceptions for some employees including traders. “We don’t have a desk for you every day,” Mr. Falzon says. “We have a desk for you three days a week.”

Hybrid models range by company. The technology company Adobe Inc. plans to allow employees to work from home up to two to three days a week, with staffers able to make reservations for office desks, says Gloria Chen, the company’s chief people officer. Other companies are hesitant to put out a specific number on days allowed at home. Factors including the length of a commute, type of job and an employee’s seniority could determine how often an employee needs to visit an office, executives say.

“We won’t prescribe” from a company level, says David Henshall, CEO at the technology company Citrix Systems Inc. “Based on the type of role you have, you’ll find that right balance.”

With flexibility can come challenges. If a team comes together in-person, but not all can make it, that potentially creates a subpar experience for those not in the room, says Expedia CEO Peter Kern. The travel company opened the first phases of an expansive campus—complete with Wi-Fi-equipped rocks —on the shores of Seattle’s Elliott Bay before the pandemic, and plans to initially permit spaced group team meetings at its headquarters.

Mr. Kern, though, says he has questions about whether those on Zoom will get the same level of learning, encouragement and career growth as those in the room. Then there are the scheduling issues.

Managers may need to “set up group meetings according to some crazy algorithm of: Who’s available when? Who’s got a flexible day, when?” Mr. Kern says. “There’s a lot of friction in all of that. It’s a lot easier to say, ‘Everybody go to work.’ Now someone calls a meeting, and you’re all there.” wsj.com