Employees Describe Different Facilitators for a Good Hybrid Work-Life

While a significant number of employees want a hybrid workplace solution where they can combine onsite and remote work, many employers require their employees to work exclusively onsite. This discrepancy can partly depend on the prevailing knowledge gap regarding success factors for performance and work-life balance (WLB) in the hybrid work context. To fill this knowledge gap, we used a reflexive thematic analysis to investigate suggestions of success factors for collaboration, work-related health and WLB in 33 hybrid workers. The success factors suggested by our participants were formed into four themes: (i) Combining onsite and remote work environments supports work effectiveness, (ii) Socialization and collaboration onsite and remotely facilitate work engagement, (iii) Suitable ICT-solutions, digital maturity, and structured communication facilitate work engagement and effectiveness, and (iv) Workplace flexibility, empowerment and personalized strategies facilitate work-related health and WLB. Overall, our results indicate that employees find that the hybrid work model can be optimal since it overcomes the shortcomings of onsite and remote work environments, respectively. Our results also suggest that a sustainable hybrid work-life can be achieved through a combination of common strategies at the organizational level and individual strategies at the personal level.