From eight years of operating as a hybrid-first company, the main lesson is that hybrid only works when it’s intentional and data-informed, not when it’s treated as a loose perk. A few practices stand out: 1. **Follow the research, then adapt it to your context** There’s a large body of occupational psychology that looks at performance, creativity, and wellbeing in remote vs. in-office settings. It doesn’t give perfect answers, but it’s a strong starting point. At BetterUp, we use this research to clarify what we’re trying to achieve, then design work practices and metrics around those goals. 2. **Be explicit about culture and values** In a hybrid setup, people don’t absorb culture just by being in the same building. We had to spell out our values and translate them into specific behaviors. Onboarding is designed very deliberately so that every step reinforces how we work and what we expect, even when people rarely come into an office. 3. **Design work practices for hybrid, not just location flexibility** Distributed teams, flexible schedules, remote work, and asynchronous collaboration can all be effective, but only if you support them with the right tools, processes, and manager capabilities. Our own research found that people working remotely reported feeling more effective and experiencing **56% greater creativity and innovative thinking**. At the same time, a Microsoft study showed that while productivity is up, conversations are down, which can hurt creativity over time. The takeaway: neither remote nor in-person alone guarantees innovation. You have to deliberately design how work gets done. 4. **Commit to continuous iteration** A hybrid model isn’t a one-time decision. We’ve had to evolve how we work—meeting norms, communication channels, performance expectations—over and over as the company grew past 500 employees. The organizations that get the most from hybrid are the ones that treat it as an ongoing design challenge, not a static policy. In short, hybrid works when you: - Use data and research as input, not dogma. - Make culture and expectations explicit. - Build the right practices, tools, and manager skills. - Keep iterating as the business and workforce change.

The structure you choose—fully in-person, fully remote, or hybrid—matters less than how clearly you commit to it and how consistently you run the business around it. Here’s what we’ve learned: 1. **Start with your beliefs and be honest about them** If you fundamentally believe remote employees are less committed or can’t collaborate effectively, you will struggle to lead a hybrid team. Your underlying assumptions will show up in who gets opportunities, who gets promoted, and how decisions are made. 2. **Avoid the “murky middle”** Employees are more frustrated by vague promises than by clear, even strict, expectations. Some banks have been very direct: if you don’t come into the office, you won’t be successful there. It may sound harsh, but it’s honest. On the other side, many tech companies have said, “You can stay remote indefinitely; we don’t care where you do your work,” and people have made real life decisions—like relocating or dropping long commutes—based on that clarity. 3. **Define the model and its principles, not just a slogan** At BetterUp, we decided early on that we didn’t want people to trade career progression or interesting work for geographic flexibility. That meant designing our hybrid model so remote employees could still access high-impact projects and advancement. Whatever model you choose, spell out: - Where people can work from. - How often in-person time is expected. - How performance and visibility will be managed. - How you’ll ensure fair opportunities for different locations. 4. **Commit to making your choice work** Any model can fail if it’s under-resourced. Once you choose, you need to: - Invest in the tools and processes that support it. - Train managers to lead effectively in that environment. - Communicate clearly and often, and be willing to iterate. The key is to pick a model that aligns with your strategy and values, state it plainly, and then back it up with consistent practices. Ambiguity is what erodes trust and performance, not the specific choice of office vs. remote.

A well-designed hybrid model can help you broaden your talent pool, strengthen inclusion, and still foster connection and innovation—but it doesn’t happen automatically. Here’s what has worked for us: 1. **Use hybrid to expand access to diverse talent** One of our original reasons for going hybrid was inclusion. With headquarters in San Francisco, it was difficult and highly competitive to hire diverse technical talent locally. Hybrid allowed us to “go where the people are” instead of limiting ourselves to one geography. By opening roles beyond the Bay Area, we could align our hiring practices with our values and bring in people with different backgrounds and perspectives. 2. **Prevent remote employees from becoming “second-class citizens”** If you design everything around people being in the same office, remote team members will feel sidelined. We’ve had to intentionally design: - Meetings that work equally well for in-person and remote participants. - Communication norms that don’t rely on hallway conversations. - Decision-making processes that are transparent and documented. 3. **Create “adaptive space” for connection and ideas** Remote work is excellent for focused, heads-down work, but it’s not always ideal for spontaneous connection and creativity. To balance this, we invest some of the real estate savings from having more remote employees into regular offsites and retreats. Roughly once a quarter (when travel is feasible), we bring teams or the whole company together. These gatherings create what Michael Arena calls **Adaptive Space**—informal “free trade zones” for ideas where conversations and serendipitous encounters can spark new thinking. The relationships built there continue to fuel collaboration long after people go back to their home offices. 4. **Equip managers for any environment** Whether you’re hybrid or in-person, the core questions for managers are the same: - How do I drive performance? - How do I develop and include everyone? - How do I create psychological safety? - How do I energize the team? The answers look different in a hybrid setup, but the goals don’t change. Training, coaching, and reflection for managers are essential. Being at home or in the office will feel equally subpar if managers don’t know how to lead in that context. After eight years and more than 500 employees, our experience is that hybrid can be a real competitive advantage when it’s used to: - Access broader, more diverse talent. - Intentionally engineer connection and idea-sharing. - Support managers with the skills they need to lead in a blended environment. Hybrid isn’t just about where people sit; it’s about how you design inclusion, connection, and innovation into the way your organization works.