[Real Beat] 'Office vs. Jaetaek' Conflict Resolver 'Hybrid Work'... Tripled in 3 Years [Office Shift]⑬

Why Hybrid Work from Home + Office Has Become the Trend
Two Combined Factors, Commonality in Late Trend Formation

Editor's Note[Jjinbit] is short for 'Jung Hyunjin's Business Trend' and 'Real Business Trend,' a segment that showcases trends in the changing nature of work. The segment within Jjinbit called 'Office Shift' closely examines the changes in offices triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic and aims to lay the groundwork for exploring answers to new work styles through experiments we have experienced together. It comes to you every Saturday and Sunday morning. After 40 installments, it will also be available as a book.

'Two Hearts Running Toward the Future'

This is Hyundai Motor Company's description of a Hybrid car. It means a car equipped with 'two hearts'?an internal combustion engine and an electric battery motor?that appropriately allocate their roles depending on road conditions. A hybrid car runs on the motor alone at low speeds, and both the engine and motor operate simultaneously when accelerating or climbing hills requiring greater driving force. It is evaluated to produce less pollution and have superior driving performance compared to typical internal combustion engine cars.

Photo of hybrid car introduction on Hyundai Motor Company's website

If hybrid cars are like this, what about hybrid work? Many readers may be hearing the term for the first time. The word 'hybrid' refers to the combination of two or more different things into one. Just as a hybrid car moves by combining an engine and a battery motor, hybrid work is a method that does not fix the work location to one place but allows working by going back and forth between home and office.

◆ Hybrid Work Share Rises from 12% to 39% in 3 Years

Hybrid work has gained significant attention worldwide since last year, when the COVID-19 crisis began to subside. Amazon has required employees to come to the office at least three days a week starting this May. Disney has already been working in the office four days a week since this month. Starbucks also instructed employees to come to the office at least three days a week starting January. Not only leading global companies but also domestic firms like Kakao and SK Telecom, which actively adopted remote work during the COVID-19 period, have taken measures this year to have employees work in the office on some weekdays.

This was a kind of declaration to end 'full remote work.' They ended 100% remote work where all tasks are done from home but did not require employees to come to the office every working day. Some retained partial remote work but introduced hybrid work that limits office attendance days to a portion of total working days. This marks the spread of a new work style that was not even considered before COVID-19.

According to Gartner, a global market research firm, which announced earlier this month, the proportion of knowledge workers worldwide engaging in hybrid work increased more than threefold from 12% in 2020 to 37% last year. During the same period, the share of workers commuting to the office rose from 20% to 49%, and full remote work plummeted from 68% to 14%, suggesting a return to pre-COVID-19 conditions. However, hybrid work increased significantly, signaling changes in office environments.

What is noteworthy is that the trend of adopting hybrid work is not expected to end in the short term. Gartner forecasts that by the end of this year, 39% of knowledge workers worldwide will work in a hybrid format. Ranjit Atwal, Senior Analyst at Gartner, said, "Hybrid work is no longer simply a benefit for employees but has become a demand from them. Many employees began partially returning to the office last year, but hybrid work will remain important not only this year but beyond."

Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford University professor who has studied remote work for nearly 20 years, also predicts that 50% of workers will engage in hybrid work in the future. He forecasts, "For the next five years, the focus will be on improving the hybrid work experience to find good operational methods."

◆ Commonalities Between Hybrid Cars and Hybrid Work

Looking into the rise of hybrid work as a 'mainstream,' it strangely resembles hybrid cars. Beyond simply being a combination of two things, both concepts initially received little attention but later gained recognition and became mainstream over a long period within their historical contexts.

The first hybrid car appeared in 1899. The 'Lohner-Porsche Mixte-Wagen,' developed by Ferdinand Porsche, the founder of Porsche, is said to be the first hybrid car made in the 19th century. At that time, various propulsion methods such as gasoline engines, electric motors, and steam engines competed as the operation methods of cars were being developed diversely. In the process, internal combustion engine cars gained dominance, and interest in hybrid cars waned.

Hybrid cars gained attention in the 1990s. Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan, confident that the value of 'eco-friendliness' would spread in the future, conducted research and launched the Prius, a hybrid car, in 1997. It is called the pioneer of mass-produced hybrid cars. It received 3,000 orders within a month of release and achieved cumulative sales of 15 million units by 2020. This car played a key role in making Toyota the world's number one car company.

Remote work, a part of hybrid work, was already mentioned in the 1960s and 1970s. Personal computers and storage devices were developed in the 1970s, and video conferencing first appeared at the 1964 World Expo. Technologically, the environment for remote work was fully established at that time. However, the perception that workspaces should be offices rather than homes did not change, and for decades, office-centered work styles were maintained.

The turning point for this perception was COVID-19. Due to the external factor of the pandemic, companies and employees were forced to work remotely, experiencing both office attendance and remote work simultaneously. In this environment, as mentioned earlier in Office Shift ("Quit after 'Come to the Office' Directive... Remote Work-Driven Talent Movement Becomes Reality [Office Shift]④·February 12 Issue), conflicts arose between employees wanting remote work and companies demanding office attendance. Hybrid work was evaluated as a compromise that could find balance within this conflict.

◆ Economic Downturn Fuels the 'Wind' of Hybrid Work

Moreover, concerns about a global economic downturn since last year have encouraged companies to adopt hybrid work. Introducing new work styles requires experiments to find ways to communicate and collaborate, but companies are not in a position to endure this. Especially IT companies, which have led remote work adoption based on technology, have started to face direct hits to their performance. They have carried out massive layoffs and named 'cost reduction' as their top priority this year, particularly among major big tech companies like Google and Meta.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

In this situation, face-to-face collaboration in the office is seen as a way to boost productivity and revive performance. Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon, said, "There is something about being face-to-face, making eye contact, and being fully immersed." Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms, Facebook's parent company, recently said, "Engineers working in person performed better on average than those working remotely."

Domestic companies are no different. Kakao explains that it prioritizes office attendance due to inefficiencies in work, communication difficulties, and the need for a dense work environment amid the economic downturn. Leisure platform Yanolja is also reportedly ending remote work starting next month and adopting a hybrid work system, citing "productivity decline" as the reason for the change.

Whether poor corporate performance can be resolved by employees returning to the office remains unknown. Within the historical context of the pandemic and economic downturn concerns, the hybrid work system is expected to continue spreading for the time being. Hybrid work is expanding amid the era's values of 'Work and Life Balance (WLB)' and work flexibility.