The role of social context in hybrid working-from-home arrangements
Hybrid working-from-home (WFH) arrangements, in which employees divide their work time between home and office, have become central to knowledge-intensive work. Yet existing research treats WFH as an individual choice and measures it by how much employees work from home. This overlooks that employees are embedded in workgroups, where the effects of hybrid WFH depend on both their own work-location choices and those of their coworkers. This dissertation examines hybrid WFH as a socially embedded and configurational work practice.
Across three empirical studies in Dutch organizations, the findings show that the consequences of hybrid WFH depend on the social context. WFH relates positively to productivity only when it is sufficiently common in the workgroup. Social isolation is lowest when employees and coworkers are aligned at lower or higher WFH intensities, but highest when both adopt moderate WFH intensities. Greater work-location alignment reduces work-related uncertainty, supporting performance and job satisfaction, while familiarity among workgroup members can buffer the challenges of misaligned schedules.
These findings suggest that the implications of hybrid WFH are not simply an individual flexibility arrangement, nor is it inherently productive, isolating, or harmful. Rather, its outcomes are shaped by collective work-location patterns, social embeddedness, and the degree of coordination among interdependent coworkers. Designing hybrid work requires more than allowing employees to choose where they work or mandate office attendance. It requires treating hybrid WFH as a collective work design issue, supported by clear expectations, workgroup-level coordination, and efforts to make mutual availability and social connection more predictable.