The Covid-19 pandemic forced an unprecedented shift to remote work. Now, as organizations transition back to in-person operations, hybrid work has emerged as a popular solution. 

Hybrid work claims to offer the best of both worlds – employees benefit from face-to-face collaboration in the office and can also focus on deep, individual work at home – but new research from the University of Washington shows this arrangement might be too good to be true. 

More than half of U.S. companies with hybrid work policies now require employees to be in the office three days a week. The study, published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior, shows that moderate office attendance requirements create ideal conditions for the formation of workplace subgroups. 

When employees follow a three-day office schedule but choose different days to come in, certain team members naturally work together more often. Researchers found that, over time, these patterns create “co-location imbalance,” which divides teams into subgroups with stronger internal relationships.