Businesses have failed to consider the practical implications of a hybrid working system.
In the spring of 2020, the pandemic was said to have brought about the world’s largest remote working experiment. But as some nations now begin to unlock, there is little agreement over the conclusions that can be drawn. Eager to escape the confines of the home office, many people are calling for a transition to a hybrid working system, whereby time is split between the home, office and any other preferred location. Others, like Darren Murph, Head of Remote at GitLab, believe businesses are heading blindly towards catastrophe, having underestimated the logistical challenges a shift to hybrid working will create. “Hybrid working is going to wreck a lot of companies; it’s going to create a lot of chaos and friction,” he told TechRadar Pro, in no uncertain terms. “The moment you force a subset of people back into the office, with another subset that is always remote, you have two playing fields to administrate — and that will be extremely difficult.” As vaccine rollouts have gathered pace and frustrations with lockdown measures have deepened, patience with remote working appears to have dwindled. However, while the home office has lost much of its initial charm, Murph is convinced the remote model can solve many deep-rooted problems with office culture and ways of working. GitLab, whose DevOps platform straddles the line between IDE and collaboration tool, was an all-remote company long before the pandemic, with no physical premises whatsoever. According to Murph, both he and GitLab have been banging the remote working drum for many years, but only recently have people begun to sit up and listen. “It feels like I’ve been pushing the remote working rock uphill for the better part of 15 years,” he said. “But Covid has enlightened the world to the fact that a lot of work can be done flexibly.” “The pandemic has accelerated a trend that was already playing out and we’re seeing a lot more people start to think about the intersection between work and life very differently.
