Creating effective hybrid work policies: Top tips & template

Hybrid work offers employees the best of both worlds – the flexibility of remote work and the camaraderie of in-office time. But managing a hybrid workforce is not an easy feat, which is why you need to ensure you have the right hybrid work policy.

Often, homeworkers end up working longer hours with fewer career advancement opportunities than their in-office counterparts. Additionally, a lack of a formal hybrid work policy could leave your employees anxious or demotivated. In some cases, it could also create two classes of workers, remote and in-office, with remote employees being treated as “second-class.”

‍So, once you've established your business is ready for hybrid work, you need to create a strong hybrid working policy that:

• Is equitable and fair to everyone
• Provides the right working conditions to all employees
• Outlines all available hybrid arrangements and requirements
• Sets clear rules for remote and office work, including working hours, required office presence, and communication channels and tools

We also advise you to use hybrid work software to make desk booking and attendance management easier.

Just as workplace policies or employee handbooks outline dos and don'ts for employees, hybrid working policies should lay down clear criteria and rules around hybrid work and also provide best practices for employees.

Below, you'll find a hybrid work policy template you can grab and use for free, plus our top tips on how to build a sensible flexible policy that works well for you and your employees – but first, let’s clarify what hybrid work actually is.

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Defining hybrid work

Hybrid work is a flexible work model that allows employees to divide their work time between the office and their home – or different locations, such as coworking spaces, libraries, or even coffee shops. It recognises that not all tasks require a physical presence in the office, and some can be effectively completed from a distance, especially if you provide your employees with the right communication and project management systems.

By implementing a hybrid work model, you can offer your people the freedom to choose where they work and enable them to strike a better work-life balance. This, in turn, can lead to better job satisfaction and retention – and improved employee well-being.

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Your free hybrid workplace policy template

The template below is yours to use; you can simply copy and paste it and tweak it to fit your organisation's needs. ‍

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Policy overview

Beginning [Date], [Company] will implement a hybrid work model. All employees are eligible for hybrid work. Schedules must fit within one of the models described below and be cleared by your manager.

Please read the entire policy and sign to confirm you have read it. Contact [name and email of contact person] if you have any questions.

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Hybrid work schedule

Hybrid schedules depend on your department; you have flexibility within the hybrid model below. Contact your direct supervisor with questions.

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All departments should book office space for in-office days with Officely.

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‍Key performance indicators (KPIs)

Your manager will discuss with you all relevant key performance indicators and how they might be affected by hybrid work.

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In-office amenities

Employees working at the office more than 3 days a week will have a dedicated desk, parking space, and access to the company gym or childcare services.

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Equipment and software

For all employees, the company will provide:

• Laptop
• Keyboard
• Mouse
• Headset
• Cellphone

Employees working remotely more than 2 days a week will also receive stipends to cover internet costs.

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Compensation and benefits

Compensation might be subject to adjustments if relocating to a different city or area.

Employees will also receive the following additional stipends:

• Gym memberships/related health membership
• Virtual health consults
• Virtual mental health counseling
• Childcare
• [Add more benefits here]

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Communication tools and guidelines

Use the following tools for remote communication:

• Email for weekly updates, updates for clients, delivery of material to clients
• Slack for team-wide communication, client groups (if requested), quick announcements
• Google Meet for meetings, presentations, stand-ups
• Officely for updating your work location (remote or from the office) and booking desks

Prioritise the use of public channels of communication and be respectful of others’ time and show up punctually for meetings.

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Commitment to equal opportunities

We’re committed to providing a similar experience to remote and in-office employees. To ensure everyone has equal access to opportunities, managers must:

• Use public channels to announce new work opportunities and projects
• Review how often employees are promoted with respect to their work preferences

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10 tips for building a successful hybrid and remote work agreement

Below, you’ll find our top tips on how to manage the transition to a hybrid work model – and how to ensure that it works well for you and your team.

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1. Determine eligibility for hybrid work

Before you start building your hybrid policy, define the roles for which hybrid work is possible and those for which it is not.

Here are some examples:

• Roles suitable for hybrid work: Most roles in project management, software development, design, marketing, finance, accounting, and admin
• Roles that require mostly in-office presence: Front desk and customer-facing roles, field staff managers, facility management staff, any role involving physical work

You might still want to offer employees in the second category some flexibility, for example by providing occasional WFH days. You might even have team members from other departments like marketing or finance cover office-based roles like the front desk from time to time to allow for more equitable access to remote work.

If your team has been working remotely but you'd like to switch to a hybrid work schedule, use an employee return-to-work survey to uncover potential concerns.

Make sure to consider resource utilisation and how exactly you'll manage your office space. One of the best ways to do that is with the help of desk booking software.

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2. Define the right hybrid work model and schedule

Hybrid work isn’t one-size-fits-all. 

Your hybrid work model might be remote-first, where employees are allowed to work remotely most of the time, or lean toward more in-office presence.

Because the term "hybrid" can mean so many things, outline the number of remote workdays allowed in your office and the advantages for each preference. For example:

• Remote 1-2 days per week: Because these employees are in the office more frequently, consider offering them a dedicated office or desk and parking space.
• Remote 3-5 days per week: Employees might have to surrender dedicated office desks but will be provided a hot desk or common area to work in the office. They may be eligible for visitor parking.
• Fully remote: These employees don’t have dedicated workspaces and may be eligible for visitor parking. They might visit the office on occasion for a few hours or a day and reserve a hot desk when they do. 

Desk booking software like Officely can make it easy to manage different schedules and give everyone the visibility they need to organise their work – and come to the office when others are there.

If you offer fully remote roles, specify if these roles are based out of specific countries, states, or cities. If you need remote employees to come to the office occasionally for client meetings and events, you might prefer to hire in your city or region.

For employees choosing hybrid work arrangements, specify if they'll set their own flexible schedule or if schedules will be manager-led. Employee-led hybrid work schedules usually provide better results, because employees know best where and how they work best.

Whatever style you choose, define when you'd expect team members to be available for work-related communication. Certain roles like customer support might need to work specific hours, even remotely.

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3. Review employee compensation

Be clear about how an employee’s location and work preference (in-office, remote, hybrid) affect their compensation and benefits, so employees can weigh the pros and cons of their choice.  

For example, if you have 100% remote positions with the option to relocate to another city or country, you might consider adjusting employee salaries to the cost of living – or decide against it. Or you could provide in-office or hybrid workers with a commute allowance.

Remote-first company Buffer has shared their salary calculator publicly, and you might want to use a cost of living calculator when defining salary ranges. However, you need to make sure you're not penalizing employees who opt for a hybrid model or those who choose to work remotely.

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4. Expand wellness and health benefits

Hybrid work offers ample flexibility, but it also has a few downsides. Employees who often work remotely might feel more isolated and some might need additional support to avoid burnout.

Here are some ways to safeguard employee health and mental wellbeing in remote and flexible working arrangements:

• Offer virtual health consultations on platforms like Teladoc and Wellthy and provide access to mental health services like Talkspace and Lyra Health
• Provide a few hours of free mental health counseling in addition to virtual consulting, if they’re not part of your Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs)
• Normalise taking time off not just for vacation but also for mental health and to care for family
• Offer stipends for exclusive in-office perks like childcare and gyms
• Encourage managers to make video optional during some meetings and reduce the number of mandatory calls per week

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5. Make sure you know the legal requirements for hybrid work

Ask your legal counsel or HR department about all local and national laws you should comply with in relation to hybrid work. Explain how you’ll fulfill legal requirements in your flexible work policy.

Here are some questions to get you started:

• Where is your business legally allowed to operate? This might affect the locations from which employees can work remotely.
• Do you need to reimburse employees for home office equipment? In states like California, laws require employers to reimburse employees for office equipment like computers, laptops, and desks. 
• Do you need to reimburse employees for office travel? While daily commutes are generally not reimbursable, for employees who work primarily from home, you might need to reimburse office travel.
• Do you need to pay overtime? Federal US laws require employers to pay overtime if employees work for more than 40 hours in a week, or in some states, more than 8 hours a day. If such laws apply in your country or state, you’ll need to define how you'll track time and whether employees require manager approval to work extra hours.

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6. Implement the right tech to uphold your new policy

The success of your hybrid work policy depends on the tools you use. Hybrid work software like Officely makes desk booking simple – and gives your employees and admin staff visibility into office attendance, making it easier to manage hybrid schedules and resources effectively.

With Officely, employees can easily reserve desks, see who’s in the office, and plan their workdays for better collaboration or focused work, all directly within Slack or Microsoft Teams. 

Other tools you should consider include: 

• Project management platforms like Asana or ClickUp
• Video conferencing software like Zoom, MS Teams, or Google Meet
• Knowledge sharing platforms like Confluence or Notion

For more ideas, check out our article on the best productivity tools for hybrid work.

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7. Set up information security measures for hybrid work

In your office, you're in control of all security measures like firewalls, virtual private networks (VPNs), on-premise servers, data centres, antivirus software, and authorised company equipment. And, while you can replicate most of these measures in a remote setting, your employees might need extra guidance to comply with data security measures.

When drafting your hybrid workplace policy, outline best practices for employees to keep your data safe, like:

• Set strong passwords and update them regularly
• Install security and software updates on a regular basis
• Avoid downloading suspicious, illegal, or unauthorised software
• Block suspicious websites and report any phishing attempts
• Use only work devices for work, and not their personal computers or smartphones
• Report any loss of equipment or information immediately
• Use a VPN as needed

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8. Create clear communication guidelines

Clear guidelines help eliminate communication silos. For hybrid teams, defaulting to remote-first online communication works best because it's equally accessible to in-office and remote employees.

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In your hybrid workplace policy, mention:

• Channels or tools for meetings, quick messages, updates, stand-ups, announcements, and reports
• Expected response time for internal emails, client emails, and Slack messages
• Internal knowledge base tools for looking up company-related information, processes, and policies
• Who to get in touch with for common issues

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9. Track employee performance

In a traditional work environment, time spent in the office was often used as one of the measures of performance and engagement, although we could probably all agree that it's a horribly inaccurate one. In a hybrid workplace, the need for setting clear key performance indicators (KPIs) is even more obvious.

Define what success looks like for different roles. For instance, “Success as a sales manager means contacting X leads per month, a X% of closed deals, and $XX in revenue.”

You can also set goals for employee attendance specially for roles that benefit from in-person collaboration, and use dedicated software like Officely to measure that.

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10. Foster equity between employees working from home or in the office

Proximity bias is one of the most common challenges of hybrid work, or the tendency to favour in-office employees. Team members working from home might miss out on important work-related talks and decisions if they happen in ad hoc meetings or in the hallway.

To provide equal opportunities to all employees, irrespective of the specific hybrid or remote work arrangement they opt for, you might decide to:

• Measure speed of promotion by employees’ work preference to avoid bias
• Announce new work opportunities and challenges using online channels like Slack or email instead of in-person meetings
• Hold virtual ask-me-anything sessions with leadership where employees can voice concerns and ask questions
• Run anonymous employee surveys to gauge employee sentiments
• Make hybrid meetings the norm, so all employees can participate regardless of their location

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The benefits of hybrid work

Hybrid work is a smart way to balance flexibility with productivity. Here’s how embracing a hybrid model can benefit your team and your business.

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Improved work-life balance

By giving employees the freedom to split their time between home and the office, you help them to better manage their personal responsibilities and commitments while staying productive. 

Additionally, you enable them to design their own work environment based on their preferences and needs – and still share time with others in the office whenever they need to work together on specific projects. 

This balance can lead to happier, healthier, and more engaged team members.

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Better collaboration and focus

Hybrid work allows employees to work together in person when it matters most and focus on deep work at home or in dedicated office areas without distractions. Finding the right balance between collaboration and individual work will depend on each person and role, but giving the possibility to switch between the two will help improve teamwork and individual productivity.

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Cost savings for everyone

Hybrid work enables businesses to downsize office space strategically and therefore reduce its associated costs (rent, utilities, and equipment), while employees save time and money on commuting and office lunches. 

Plus, it can also help reduce the environmental impact of your company.

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Steps to implement a hybrid work policy

Now that you have a policy template at your disposal and know what benefits hybrid work can offer, let’s see exactly how you can shift to this model, step by step. 

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1. Assess your company's needs

Before switching to hybrid work and flexible work hours, take the time to assess your company's needs and challenges. 

Consider factors like job roles, team dynamics, and client expectations. Identify potential roadblocks and develop strategies to address them.

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2. Draft the policy

Once you have a clear understanding of your company's needs, it's time to draft your hybrid policy. You can use the template above as your starting point and refine it as necessary. 

Involve HR, managers, and employees in the policy development process and make sure it aligns with both the company’s needs and your team’s preferences. 

Make sure the policy is comprehensive and easy to understand. Clearly define eligibility criteria, expectations, and guidelines for remote and hybrid work. Address issues like scheduling, time tracking, and performance evaluation.

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3. Share the policy with employees

Once the policy is ready, share it with everyone. Be transparent and address any concerns or questions others may have. Provide training and resources to ensure that employees can navigate the hybrid work environment easily. 

Regularly review and update the policy based on feedback and your team’s needs.

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Overcoming challenges in hybrid work arrangements

Now, let’s look into some of the problems you might face and see how you can tackle them. 

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Maintaining team cohesion

One of the biggest challenges of hybrid work is maintaining team cohesion and collaboration and reducing silos. 

Encourage regular team meetings, both in-person and virtually, to build strong relationships. Use collaboration tools to simplify knowledge sharing and manage projects efficiently. 

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Ensuring accountability and productivity

Remote and hybrid work may bring up concerns about accountability and productivity – but empowering employees to take ownership of their work usually yields much better results than micromanaging them.

Define clear expectations, goals, and KPIs for each role, along with metrics to measure performance. Give regular feedback and celebrate wins to keep employees motivated and engaged, and ensure they know what to do whenever they face challenges that might impact their work. 

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Addressing technical issues

Not all remote or hybrid employees will be sufficiently tech-savvy to tackle all technical issues on their own, so ensure that employees have access to IT support when needed. 

To maintain airtight security for your data and systems, you might also consider setting up regular maintenance checks for all company-provided equipment. Encourage employees to use secure internet connections and back up their work regularly.

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Boost your hybrid success with help from Officely 

Hybrid work policies help you build a work environment that's centred around your employees' well-being and work-life balance, which will help you improve productivity and attract top talent.

To implement this successfully, you need the right hybrid work policy template, which you can find above, along with the right software tools. Here's a sample tech stack to get you started:

• Communication platforms such as Slack, Google Meet, or MS Teams
• Productivity and project management apps such as Asana, ClickUp, or Monday.com
• Desk booking software such as Officely

Officely simplifies hybrid work and makes it easier for employees to reserve desks and know the best days to go into the office. Book a free demo to see how easy it can be to build a strong flexible work policy with the right software at hand – and check out Officely’s Complete Guide to Office Management in Flexible Workplaces for more ideas on how to make hybrid work work for everyone. 

Best high-quality video equipment: Meeting Owl

Whenever you have more than two in-person attendees to a hybrid meeting, you’ll need to make sure remote participants can see and hear them clearly. Meeting Owl is a handy little piece of tech that helps you do just that. It’s a smart 360-degree conference camera, speaker, and microphone system designed specifically for hybrid meetings that captures the entire room and all participants.

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It automatically focuses on speakers by zooming in, and shifts the focus whenever someone else is speaking. This helps remote participants follow the conversation easily, without struggling to figure out who’s talking or see them clearly. The device’s microphone is built to pick up voices from the entire meeting space, even if some team members speak softly or are far from the device. 

And it’s compatible with popular video conferencing platforms like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet, so you can simply plug it in and get going, as you use other familiar software tools.

For smaller rooms, you could also use Jabra PanaCast; for mid-sized meetings, Poly Studio X Series is a great alternative (none of them have the 360° capabilities of Meeting Owl, though). 

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Leading collaboration tool: Slack

Slack is a great choice for collaboration during meetings, as it’ll help teams prepare, set clear expectations, share agendas, docs, and meeting notes, and follow up. 

This helps make each call more to-the-point; because, let’s face it, nobody likes being stuck in endless Zoom calls with no clear agenda or goals.

During hybrid meetings, Slack channels serve as a live backchannel for participants to share quick updates or post questions without interrupting the speaker – and you can also use built-in polls to make decisions together in real time. 

If your team is not already on Slack but, say, on Microsoft Teams, then Teams is the obvious choice.

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Top choice for audio equipment: Jabra Speak

If crisp audio is a top priority for you, the Jabra Speak series is a great choice. Models you should consider are Jabra Speak 750, 510, or 710. 

All the Jabra portable speakerphones have excellent audio and are super easy to use. They’re best for small to medium-sized meeting rooms and can capture voice from all directions, even if attendees are speaking quietly. All those devices are compact and wireless; you can connect them to your setup via Bluetooth or USB. 

The Jabra Speak 750 has full duplex audio, allowing participants to speak and hear at the same time, which helps have a more natural conversation. (After years of remote meetings, at last you can get a tool that has this feature!).

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The best hybrid event platform overall: Bizzabo

If you need to organize large hybrid events, Bizzabo is a great option. It offers customization, data analytics, and branding to help you set up everything and track performance. 

With it, you can add your branding at all attendee touch points, such as registration pages, email marketing, landing pages, and the event itself. You can track attendance for both in-person and online participants easily, and also use interactive features like chat, polls, and Q&A to make sure everyone can participate. 

The platform supports live, pre-recorded, and on-demand video, too, which means you can stay very flexible with the actual delivery of your content. 

However, it might not be the best fit if you need it for a single hybrid conference or a few webinars. Pricing starts at $499/month/user, for a minimum of 3 users, making it quite pricey for occasional users. 

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Why it's critical to run a successful hybrid meeting

Hybrid meetings are critical for any flexible workplace. If your team isn’t always in the office, you need to make sure people can collaborate with each other efficiently at all times, regardless of location – and that they have the right hybrid work tools.

When hybrid meetings are poorly planned, scheduled, and executed, they can quickly become chaotic and drain everyone’s time and energy. And we all know how easy it is to tune out during meetings that are not well organized or without clear goals… Or simply “forget” to show up. 

So, to make sure your meetings actually serve their purpose and are engaging and meaningful for everyone, you need to ensure that you’re able to execute them well. This means: 

• Having the right audio and video equipment
• Using the right software tools (collaboration tools and workspace management software)
• Communicating with everyone in advance on each meeting’s objectives and agenda
• Only inviting people who need to be there – and who are able to contribute

The last two points are essential for any meeting, but even more so in hybrid environments where building a solid hybrid culture can be a challenge. Meetings are the perfect opportunity to improve and maintain employees’ engagement and strengthen your office culture, so if you miss it, you’ll be missing out on a lot of things that go beyond the immediate goals of each call. 

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5 best practices for hosting hybrid meetings

Once you’ve nailed the tech, you can focus on improving participation. That requires more than just planning. 

You’ll need to proactively encourage all participants to speak up – those who are in the same room with you and those who are joining remotely. If you've introduced your team to new software for your meetings, you'll also need to make sure you provide adequate training or have a step-by-step plan in place.

But first and foremost, you’ll need to go back to the basics.

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1. Establish meeting rules

Hybrid or not, all meetings need to follow some ground rules so participants can get more value out of them and be able to participate freely.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of the basic rules for any hybrid meeting:

• Create an agenda: Send it to everyone before the meeting, so attendees come prepared
• Stick to your start and end time: This shows respect for everyone involved
• Invite the right people: If someone thinks the meeting is unimportant for them, let them decline
• Limit speaking time: Assign a time limit to each item on the agenda, including questions
• Explain the setup to in-room attendees in advance: They should know where the camera and the microphone are, so they know where to look and how to speak when they want to

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2. Assign facilitators or in-room buddies

While most meetings have a host (like a team manager or team leader), hybrid meetings need more than that; they need a facilitator. A facilitator acts as a moderator, keeping an eye on comments from remote participants, relaying feedback, and making sure everyone sticks to the meeting’s agenda.

Facilitators don’t just read typed comments; they also watch out for other cues like someone raising their hand or unmuting themselves. For small meetings, facilitators may also double up as meeting hosts. For a large meeting, you might need a facilitator and a host or two facilitators to make sure all participants can, well, participate.

An in-room buddy for remote attendees can help them voice concerns they’re not comfortable sharing out loud, or simply ensure they get enough opportunities to speak. 

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3. Use interactive tools

If your hybrid meeting includes activities like polling or brainstorming, use interactive, cloud-based tools.

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Here are some interactive tools you can use: 

• A phone-based survey tool like Poll Everywhere for polling
• A virtual whiteboarding tool like Miro for brainstorming
• Document collaboration apps like Google Docs, where you share links with everyone instead of simply putting them on the main screen, so everyone can read them better and add comments and suggestions

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4. Go Remote-first for questions and comments

In-room attendees are at an advantage in a hybrid meeting: They’re actually present in the meeting room. The only way to level the playing field for remote attendees is to give them an added advantage, too: Go to remote employees first for Q&A sessions.

Ask remote employees for their opinions or comments before switching topics. Allow remote participants to lead meetings occasionally. Finally, pay extra attention to feedback from remote employees. Do they feel they get a chance to participate fully in all meetings? Is audio and video clear? Do they have additional suggestions or comments?

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5. Test your setup

Before your first hybrid meeting (or before particularly important hybrid events), schedule a 10-minute dry run to make sure your equipment works fine, iron out any hardware or software issues, and make sure both sets of participants can see and hear each other well.

Your first meeting may not be perfect, and that’s okay. After the meeting, ask in-person and remote attendees for feedback on how to improve future meetings.

Running successful hybrid meetings is only one of many challenges you might face as a manager at a hybrid workplace. Check out other hybrid work challenges and how to overcome them – or dive deeper into how to host seamless hybrid meetings (with examples).

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Preparation is core to a good hybrid meeting experience

Hybrid meetings don’t have to be complicated – especially now that you know how to organize them efficiently. However, they require more preparation and planning to get right than your standard in-person or remote meeting. 

That preparation comes in the form of using the best tools for the job, including the right workspace management software (like Officely) to plan where and when your meetings will take place, who’ll be able to participate in person, and ensure you have the right equipment at hand. 

For more ideas on how to better organize hybrid workspaces and meetings, check out our Guide to office management in flexible workspaces, an eBook we’ve created to help office managers better tackle the challenges of hybrid work. 

And, if you’re ready to provide your team with a better and simpler way to book meeting rooms, desks, and equipment in a hybrid office, book a demo to see how Officely can help with all that – and more!