Hybrid working now just a fact of life for those people able to work flexibly

Hybrid working has become commonplace for those employees able to work from home, a survey of firms has suggested. More than 80 percent of people said their employers had adopted hybrid working, most of them since the pandemic, according to the survey for the Chartered Institute of Management (CMI). However a majority of business are also actively encouraging employees to return to the office as part of their new working culture.

“It would be very short sighted of bosses not to see some correlation in the shift in the working world, and the move towards hybrid working,” said CMI chief executive Ann Francke. “We are experiencing an uptick in productivity, and an uptick in many companies results. We’re not saying everyone should work from home 100 percent of the time, we’re saying the best practice is to have a blend, so when you come into the office you can do those things that are very difficult to do remotely.”

The survey  of 1,237 managers, first published by the BBC, claims that 84 percent of managers said their firms had adopted hybrid working and two-thirds said this had been prompted by the Covid pandemic. Large companies were more likely than small ones to have brought in hybrid working practices, while jobs in factories, transport and trades were less likely to offer the option.