Hybrid Workplace Trends

Just out in Harvard Business Review, summary of the Hybrid Experiment results and lessons on how to make hybrid succeed. Experiment: randomize 1600 graduate employees in marketing, finance, accounting and engineering at Trip.com into 5-days a week in office, or 3-days a week in office and 2-days a week WFH. Analyzed 2 years of data. Two key results A) Hybrid and fully-in-office showed no differences in productivity, performance review grade, promotion, learning or innovation. B) Hybrid had a higher satisfaction rate, and 35% lower attrition. Quit-rate reductions were largest for female employees. Four managerial lessons 1) Hybrid needs a strong performance management system so managers don’t need to hover over employees at their desks to check their progress. Trip.com had an extensive performance review process every six months. 2) Coordinate in-office days at the team or company level. Schedule clarity prevents the frustration of coming to an empty office only to participate in Zoom calls. Trip.com coordinated WFH on Wednesday and Friday. 3) Having leadership buy-in is critical (as with most management practices). Trip.com’s CEO and C-suite all support the hybrid policy. 4) A/B test new policies (as well as products) if possible. Often new policies turn out to be unexpectedly profitable. Trip.com made millions of dollars more profits from hybrid by cutting expensive turnover.

“You live in Kenya. You work for a German firm. You’re paid in euros. So why is the Kenya Revenue Authority asking for your PIN?” Because in 2024, “remote” doesn’t mean invisible — at least not to the taxman. Kenya is now home to over 100,000 expatriates — many of whom are paid abroad, work online, and live in Nairobi, Naivasha, or Nakuru. But here’s the thing: If you spend 183+ days in Kenya, you’re considered a tax resident. If you're working for a Kenyan company (even while abroad), you need a KRA PIN. And if you're hiring remote Kenyan talent from overseas, you could trigger corporate tax liabilities without realising it. This isn’t just about income. It’s about compliance, cost, and consequences. We just released a sharp, simplified guide: 👉🏾 “Am I Being Taxed Twice?” – The Expat & Remote Worker Survival Kit for Kenya. The newsletter is attached and can be shared. It unpacks: ✅ How double taxation actually works ✅ Whether you're protected under a DTA ✅ What “permanent establishment” means for remote employers ✅ Why failing to register for a KRA PIN could block your salary, your lease—or worse This is for expats, global employers, and anyone who’s ever wondered: “How can I work in one country… and get taxed in two?” 💬 Questions after reading? We’re helping clients across the globe navigate this new reality. Because in the age of digital work, compliance is no longer a location—it's a strategy. #DoubleTaxation #RemoteWork #ExpatriatesInKenya #KRA #TaxCompliance #MMWAdvocates #CrossBorderLaw #TaxStrategy #LegalWithPerspective

Let's start Disability Pride Month 💜 with, "Why the Disability/Neurodivergent Community Advocates for Work From Home or Flexible Work" 1. Addressing Inaccessibility: Traditional office environments often lack the necessary accommodations for individuals with disabilities. Remote work removes these barriers, providing an accessible and comfortable workspace tailored to individual needs. 2. Managing Energy Levels: Many people with disabilities experience limited energy levels due to chronic conditions. Flexible work allows them to manage their energy more effectively, reducing the risk of burnout and enhancing overall productivity. 3. Economic Benefits: Remote work eliminates the costs associated with commuting and the need for expensive adaptive equipment in the workplace. This financial relief can be significant, allowing individuals to invest in health, education, and personal growth. 4. Time for Self-Care and Family: Flexible work schedules provide individuals with disabilities more time for essential self-care routines and to spend quality time with their families. This balance is crucial for mental and physical well-being. 5. Environmental Sustainability: Reduced commuting contributes to lower carbon emissions, making remote work an environmentally sustainable option. This aligns with broader societal goals of reducing our carbon footprint. 6. Enhanced Productivity: Working from home allows for a personalized environment that can minimize distractions and increase focus, leading to higher productivity levels. 7. Improved Mental Health: The flexibility to create a comfortable and supportive work environment can significantly reduce stress and anxiety, contributing to better mental health. 8. Greater Inclusion and Equity: By adopting flexible work models, employers can ensure that their workplaces are inclusive and equitable, providing equal opportunities for individuals with disabilities. What’s the point behind this? The insistence on traditional office setups often overlooks the unique needs of the disability community. Flexible work is not merely a convenience; it’s a necessity for creating an inclusive, equitable, and productive workforce. Why should location matter if employees can deliver high-quality work remotely? It’s time to rethink outdated workplace norms and embrace flexibility as a standard practice. In an ideal world, inclusivity and accessibility are at the core of corporate values. ID: Screenshot of a Twitter post by Puneet Singhal (@puneetsiinghal22) with the tweet reading, "Why the Disability/Neurodivergent Community Advocates for Work From Home or Flexible Work." #DisabilityPrideMonth #WorkFromHome #WeAreBillionStrong #SDGs #AXSChat #Accessibility #DisabilityInclusion #WFH

40% of Japan's towns could disappear by 2040. Japan's population crisis is reaching a breaking point. With one of the world's lowest birth rates and a rapidly aging society, the country lost over 800,000 people in 2022 alone - equivalent to erasing a major city from the map. But there's hope on the horizon. Japan's Tourism Agency just announced a groundbreaking initiative: Starting 2025, they'll subsidize the creation of digital nomad hubs across the country. The plan includes creating 24/7 workspaces, vibrant community venues, and modern accommodations to welcome global remote workers. Having worked with digital nomad communities worldwide, I've seen this strategy transform economies. Portugal's Madeira is the perfect example - what started as a digital nomad village experiment has evolved into a thriving international community, attracting not just temporary visitors but permanent residents and foreign investment. The key to success? Two crucial elements: - Local community leadership that genuinely integrates newcomers - Strong global marketing that attracts the right talent Japan has all the ingredients to make this work: cutting-edge tech, rich culture, legendary hospitality. Now it's about execution. While attracting digital nomads won't solve Japan's low birth rate directly, it's a rapid injection of talent and energy that gives the country breathing room to implement longer-term demographic solutions. What do you think about Japan's strategy to combat depopulation through digital nomads? Ps: Picture from a beautiful coworking space in Fukuoka region I visited last October. #Japan #DigitalNomads #Innovation #RemoteWork #FutureOfWork

In 2022, I predicted that by 2025, 60% of enterprises would actively foster socialization to combat chronic loneliness and social isolation exacerbated by digital technology. How has loneliness progressed? 🔍 Here's a snapshot according to Gallup's Global Workplace 2024 Report : 🌐 Globally, 1 in 5 employees report experiencing loneliness frequently, with those under 35 and fully remote workers most impacted. 😔 62% of employees are not engaged, while 15% are actively disengaged. 🆘 58% of employees feel they are struggling in life, with only 34% considering themselves thriving. ⚠️ 41% experience "a lot of daily stress." Loneliness and disconnection are silent problems — they often manifest as apathy, disengagement, or learned helplessness at work. So, what can we do to help? 💡 Steps to Consider: -Create a Support Network: Identify your team’s needs and implement channels to address them, such as employee assistance programs, financial planning tools, family assistance, buddy systems, communities, and ERGs. -Rethink the Work Environment: Co-design spaces for deeper relationships by mapping the employee experience and identifying changes in physical spaces, inclusive technology, and management practices. -Redesign Teams: Foster interdependence with collaboration platforms like fusion teams, cross-functional mentoring, and shadowing for problem-solving. - Recognize and Incentivize Goodwill: Acknowledge efforts with peer recognition/gratitude programs, making support visible to all. Implement an Inclusion Index: Measure fair treatment, collaboration, psychological safety, trust, belonging, diversity, and integration of differences through various feedback methods. - Train Managers: Provide managers with guidelines on the expected level of involvement in employee well-being. Train them in handling sensitive conversations, building personal connections, and evaluating mental health on a spectrum. Managers account for 70% of the variance in team employee engagement. Let's address these silent issues head-on and create a more connected and supportive workplace! 💪✨ #WorkplaceWellness #EmployeeEngagement #Inclusion #MentalHealth #FutureOfWork #Leadership #TeamBuilding For data see: Gallup's State of the Global Workforce Report https://lnkd.in/ecj8KUuw

Where's #hybrid work headed in 2025? Andy Jassy started the latest #RTO push. Elon's driving for the same in the Federal workforce, saying the quiet part out loud: get people to quit. That return-to-past attitude (kudos Francis Saele) creates opportunity for other organizations. In 2025, we'll see growing gaps between firms who've invested in #flexible ways of working versus those who are trying to solve complex business challenges through simplistic policy pronouncements. Leaders have already shifted from where to how we work -- is your organization keeping up? Five key trends that will drive success (or failure) of flexible work in 2025: 1️⃣ Talent Advantage: Investors in flexible work will be quiet magnets happily plucking talent from the loud voices who are braying that employees “aren’t really working.” 2️⃣ Outcomes not Attendance: More firms are (finally) investing in outcomes-driven management, resulting in a more level playing field and improved business results. 3️⃣ Time-Based Advantage. Time matters more than place; core hours for distributed teams and focus time for everyone unlocks productivity and quality. 4️⃣ Co-located vs Distributed. There's no one-size-fits-all; leaders understand and support the differences between teams who are co-located vs spread out. 5️⃣ Flex Winners become Gen AI Leaders. Adapting to new ways of working requires experimentation, guidelines, support, focus on outcomes ... and trust. What's your take? Will #hybrid work continue to take the lead? What's going to drive success in workplace #flexibility in 2025? 👉 Read on, my latest MIT Sloan Management Review column linked in comments. Thanks to Leslie Brokaw, Laurianne McLaughlin and Abbie Lundberg! #FutureOfWork #Leadership #HybridWork #RemoteWork #Productivity #GenAI #Engagement #Talent

🌐 "How can we lead inclusive team meetings when our team is so widely distributed across timezones?" That's a question our #Inclusion Strategy team at Netflix has been reflecting on quite a bit lately – and that's surely not an issue we face alone. Here are some ideas that popped up as we put our geographically distance heads together to ensure that everyone has an equal opportunity to participate in discussions that are relevant to all: 1️⃣ Establish a Meeting Time Rotation: to ensure fair participation, create a rotating schedule for your meetings. This means alternating meeting times to accommodate different time zones, so that each team member has an opportunity to attend during their regular working hours on a rotating basis. 2️⃣ Consider Core Overlapping Hours: identify the core overlapping hours when the majority of team members are available. Aim to schedule important meetings during these hours to maximize attendance. This may require some flexibility from all team members, but it fosters a sense of shared responsibility for ensuring everyone's voice can be heard. 3️⃣ Prioritise Meeting Relevance: ensure that meetings are called only when it's essential for all team members to be present. Avoid scheduling meetings for routine updates that can be shared asynchronously, giving team members more flexibility to manage their schedules. 4️⃣ Create Pre-Meeting Materials: provide agendas, and key discussion points well in advance, so team members who cannot attend live sessions can still contribute their input asynchronously. This way, everyone can stay informed and engaged in the decision-making process. 5️⃣ Encourage Rotating Facilitation: consider rotating meeting facilitators to accommodate different time zones. This not only distributes the responsibility but also allows team members from various geographies to lead discussions and bring diverse perspectives to the forefront. 6️⃣ Use Inclusive Meeting Technologies: leverage virtual meeting tools with features like real-time chat and polling to foster engagement from all participants, regardless of their location. Consider having all meetings recorded by default (unless there's a compelling reason not to), streamlining access to the team immediately after each recording is ready. 7️⃣ Promote Open Feedback Channels: establish channels for team members to asynchronously provide feedback on meeting times and themes, and communication methods. 8️⃣ Acknowledge and Respect Personal & Cultural Differences: be mindful of cultural practices and observances that may impact team members' availability or participation. Strive to do the same about individuals' needs, too (like dropping kids at school). These strategies can help create an inclusive and equitable approach to meetings, enhancing the chances of all team members feeling valued and empowered to contribute. How else can you foster that? 🤔

"Remote workers bring not just economic benefits but also a diversification of skills and innovative ideas to communities." – Darcy Marie Mayfield, specialist in Culture Architecture and Experience Design. Recognizing work as an activity (i.e. it can be done remotely), not a place, helps us understand the essence of corporate culture better, what that means, and how culture shows up and supports a business and workforce. In my latest podcast episode, Darcy shares her experiences in hospitality at Airbnb and involvement in research designing systems to codify and scale company culture at early fully remote organizations. Darcy explains experience design to connect, onboard, integrate, and support a distributed workforce—engineering serendipity and creating consistent #rituals. "It’s about designing the connections and programming, so people feel like they belong so much earlier and so much more often." She describes the importance of leadership, cultivating #empathy, and setting the example, "Leaders must set the tone—just like our CEO had their kid there [during the pandemic], then everybody else will follow." Darcy discusses how initiatives like Tulsa Remote have made meaningful economic contributions to revitalize cities by attracting digital nomads and #remoteworkers and fostering local collaborations. Watch or listen to Darcy’s actionable insights for creating inclusive, connected thriving communities and environments that integrate and benefit substantially from remote and distributed workers and teams. Links in the comments to popular podcast platforms.

If you are building AI agents or learning about them, then you should keep these best practices in mind 👇 Building agentic systems isn’t just about chaining prompts anymore, it’s about designing robust, interpretable, and production-grade systems that interact with tools, humans, and other agents in complex environments. Here are 10 essential design principles you need to know: ➡️ Modular Architectures Separate planning, reasoning, perception, and actuation. This makes your agents more interpretable and easier to debug. Think planner-executor separation in LangGraph or CogAgent-style designs. ➡️ Tool-Use APIs via MCP or Open Function Calling Adopt the Model Context Protocol (MCP) or OpenAI’s Function Calling to interface safely with external tools. These standard interfaces provide strong typing, parameter validation, and consistent execution behavior. ➡️ Long-Term & Working Memory Memory is non-optional for non-trivial agents. Use hybrid memory stacks, vector search tools like MemGPT or Marqo for retrieval, combined with structured memory systems like LlamaIndex agents for factual consistency. ➡️ Reflection & Self-Critique Loops Implement agent self-evaluation using ReAct, Reflexion, or emerging techniques like Voyager-style curriculum refinement. Reflection improves reasoning and helps correct hallucinated chains of thought. ➡️ Planning with Hierarchies Use hierarchical planning: a high-level planner for task decomposition and a low-level executor to interact with tools. This improves reusability and modularity, especially in multi-step or multi-modal workflows. ➡️ Multi-Agent Collaboration Use protocols like AutoGen, A2A, or ChatDev to support agent-to-agent negotiation, subtask allocation, and cooperative planning. This is foundational for open-ended workflows and enterprise-scale orchestration. ➡️ Simulation + Eval Harnesses Always test in simulation. Use benchmarks like ToolBench, SWE-agent, or AgentBoard to validate agent performance before production. This minimizes surprises and surfaces regressions early. ➡️ Safety & Alignment Layers Don’t ship agents without guardrails. Use tools like Llama Guard v4, Prompt Shield, and role-based access controls. Add structured rate-limiting to prevent overuse or sensitive tool invocation. ➡️ Cost-Aware Agent Execution Implement token budgeting, step count tracking, and execution metrics. Especially in multi-agent settings, costs can grow exponentially if unbounded. ➡️ Human-in-the-Loop Orchestration Always have an escalation path. Add override triggers, fallback LLMs, or route to human-in-the-loop for edge cases and critical decision points. This protects quality and trust. PS: If you are interested to learn more about AI Agents and MCP, join the hands-on workshop, I am hosting on 31st May: https://lnkd.in/dWyiN89z If you found this insightful, share this with your network ♻️ Follow me (Aishwarya Srinivasan) for more AI insights and educational content.

"𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 6 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐥𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐭𝐡? 🤔" While working from home, back in the Covid times I was working on a hard-deadline critical project. For more than a year: 🍽️ Skipping lunches became the norm. 📧 Emails/messages demanded immediate responses at all hours. 🏡 The boundary between work and personal life blurred. 💼 The toll on my health included cervical problems. 🤝 A growing disconnect with colleagues was undeniable. With time, I embraced a better way of remote working: ✅ I booked my calendar for lunch. ✅ Set firm limits on working hours. ✅ Yoga and quality family time became my daily rituals. 🎨 My neglected hobbies found their place once again. Today, I find immense joy in a hybrid work culture. It's the perfect blend of two worlds I believe. 🏢 I cherish in-person office days, connecting with colleagues over coffee. ⏰ Swift issue resolutions through face-to-face meetings. 📝 Whiteboard discussions that can't be replaced by virtual screens. 👔 Dressing up for the office (utilizing clothes other than pajamas haha). 👨👩👧👦 Quality time with friends and family on remote work days. 🎨 And me-time to pursue my hobbies, all discovered in traffic-free moments. For IT professionals like myself, the choice between remote and office work hinges on a combination of personal preference and job requirements. For me, it's the hybrid mode that strikes the perfect balance. 😍 What's your ideal work mode, and how do you find balance in the fast-paced world of tech? 🚀👩💻 #WorkLifeBalance #RemoteWork #HybridWork #Microsoft #teaching #jobs #career