Have you heard of hybrid work?

Hybrid work refers to a way of working that combines remote work (telework) and office work to give you more freedom in how you work.

Hybrid work has come back to the forefront because it allows you to make the most of the merits of both remote work and office work.

Meanwhile, now that we have overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a growing call for no longer having to work remotely, but abolishing remote work could have a negative impact on companies.

This is because remote work allows employees to work from home if they are unable to come to the office for some reason.

For this reason, introducing hybrid work has great merits for companies, and it also plays an important role in today’s world where work style reform is being advocated.

In this article, we will explain hybrid work and ultimately introduce recommended services that can be used to implement hybrid work.

1.What is hybrid work?

Hybrid work refers to a way of working that allows employees to work both remotely and in the office, allowing for more freedom in their work style. After the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been voices saying that remote work is no longer necessary, and many companies have abolished remote work, but modern hybrid work is the adoption of both the opinions of the company and the employees.

It may be surprising, but it’s not just companies that are calling for the abolition of remote work, but employees too. The reason for this is that remote work can not solve the issues that are necessary for working, such as feelings of loneliness and difficulty in communication.

Differences between telework and remote work

The difference between hybrid work, remote work, and telework is the way of working. Hybrid work is a way of working where you can choose between office work and remote work depending on the situation. In contrast, telework and remote work are based on the premise that you work away from the office, and refer to working from home, a cafe, or on a business trip. Therefore, while remote work and telework are included in hybrid work, the meaning of hybrid work is not included in remote work and telework.

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Percentage of companies adopting hybrid work

The number of companies that have introduced hybrid work is increasing year by year, and the number of companies that have introduced hybrid work from 2022 to 2023 has increased by 5% in one year, from 53% in 2022 to 58% in 2023. Of course, many companies have stopped remote work and telework, but by keeping the system while continuing office work, it has greatly contributed to making it easier for employees to work.

How does hybrid work affect employees’ lives?

By introducing hybrid work at a company, employees can enjoy both the merits of remote work and teleworking as well as the merits of office work, so there are many merits for the company as well. For example, an employee who commutes for an hour can reduce their commute time to zero and focus on their work, and even if they are unable to come to work due to their child’s fever or sudden illness, they can work remotely or telework from home while taking care of their child.

On the other hand, there are few demerits, and many people seem to feel that the demerits they felt with remote work or teleworking disappear when they switch to hybrid work. Most of the demerits that were mentioned with remote work or teleworking were due to not going to the office, such as difficulty in communicating and not being able to get enough exercise because you don’t leave the house. However, with hybrid work, you can go to the office, so communication problems can be solved and you are less likely to be lacking in exercise.

2.Current state of hybrid work

We found that many companies have already introduced hybrid work. According to a survey by the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism, which we are using as a reference, the national average of 24.8% of respondents said that their workplace allows teleworking, and approximately 20% of companies have introduced teleworking. As a result, many companies are making remote work and teleworking available, and are implementing flexible working styles. *1

*1 Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism_2023 Telework Population Survey – Survey Results (Summary) –

3.Merits and Demerits of Hybrid Work

So far, we have talked about how hybrid work is being used, but next we will talk about its merits and demerits. Hybrid work, which allows you to combine remote work and office work, can make us of the merits of both, but it still has demerits. Let’s start with the merits.

Merits of hybrid work

The merits of hybrid work are as follows:

Work style can be changed to suit employees’ lifestyles

Do you have these kinds of problems when working in an office? You have to go to work every morning during rush hour, and end up exhausted before you even get to work, or you have to take time off work leaving behind work that you could not take time off from because your child suddenly has a fever. Hybrid work is a way of working that can solve these problems. If you introduce hybrid work, you can not avoid the daily rush hour, but you can reduce the frequency, and if your child has a fever, you can work remotely just for that day and come to work while taking care of your child.

Easy to communicate

The biggest demerit of remote work is that it is difficult to communicate with customers and coworkers. This is because there are cases where a deal would have been concluded if a face-to-face approach had been made when doing business with a customer, and when trying to improve teamwork as a company, it is difficult to check the facial expressions of team members and have casual conversations.

However, with hybrid work, you can come to the office, so you can conduct business negotiations both face-to-face and online. Communication with company members can also be done both remotely and in the office, so problems are less likely to occur.

Cost reduction

As a merit for the company, you can expect cost reductions such as transportation allowances and reduced utility bills. In addition, employees can expect cost reductions as they will have fewer opportunities to eat out and purchase products.

Demerits of hybrid work

I have talked about the merits of hybrid work, but next I will explain the demerits. The demerits of hybrid work are as follows.

You can not distinguish between work and private life

Although we are not always at home, we think there are people who cannot concentrate on their work at home. Therefore, they may not be able to fully get into work mode at home and may not be able to perform at their best in office work. Furthermore, working from home means that your home becomes your workplace, so there is no place to distinguish between your private life and work. This is a disadvantage of telework, so if you have trouble balancing work and personal life, the problem can be solved by coming to the office. However, hybrid work, which allows employees to work either remotely or in the office, has the potential to cause inconvenience in their daily lives.

People are considered unmotivated if they do not come to the office

It seems as though the perception of remote work has become unified around the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it is true that there is a perception that remote work is easy. It’s not a problem that this perception exists, but there is a risk that the frequency of remote work will affect the company’s evaluation on employee doing remote work. If that happens, no matter how well you produce results, you will be paid less than employees who come to the office. To prevent this from happening, when introducing hybrid working, it is important to carefully consider the evaluation aspect and to ensure that management and executives are on the same page about hybrid working.

You can not hire from anywhere across the country

Hybrid work requires that you come to the office, so you can not hire people who can’t come to the office. Therefore, the range of recruitment is significantly reduced compared to remote work. However, remote work gives a good impression to workers, therefore you can maintain your advantage in terms of recruitment by allowing remote work. By making use of this feature and merit of allowing remote work in your recruitment activities, your hiring rate will also increase.

4.How to implement hybrid work

So far, we have discussed the merits and demerits of hybrid work, but next we will explain how to implement hybrid work. The methods for implementing hybrid work are as follows.

Establish operational rules

First of all, you need to determine the operating rules. Since this is a hybrid work environment, it is not possible to not come to the office at all, so you need to determine rules regarding how often employees will come to the office and how this will affect their evaluations. Attendance management will also be important, so give it careful consideration. You also need to consider the means of communication. This will likely be the chat tools, email, or online meeting apps you currently use, but you should determine what to use in what situations.

Preparing the environment

Next, prepare the environment for implementing hybrid work. The most typical things are an internet connection and a work PC. When implementing hybrid work, cloud systems or thin client systems will likely be used, but you cannot use them unless you have an internet connection. If you want to implement it easily, you can use a cloud system, but if you try to implement hybrid work with a thin client system, it will take time. Therefore, you will need to set aside plenty of time to prepare the environment.

In addition, subsidies may be available for the costs required to set up the environment. By making good use of local and national subsidies while introducing hybrid work, you can set up the environment at a good price.

Establish security

When implementing hybrid work, company data will be taken outside the company, so security measures are absolutely necessary. Therefore, in general, you should refrain from taking your PC outside the company to carry out hybrid work. This is because there is a risk that important data may be stolen or lost by others if you take your PC outside the company. If you are going to implement hybrid work that involves taking your PC outside the company, it is important to either put in place a system that does not leave data on the PC or to use a cloud service.

5.Recommended services

We will introduce recommended methods for introducing hybrid work. Before introducing recommended services, we will explain how to introduce remote work. There are two main ways to introduce remote work.

They can be divided like this. Either the same work is done at home via the Internet using cloud services, or remote work is implemented using a VPN connection or thin client system on a server. If you have server management skills, you can implement remote work using a server, but it is quite difficult to implement remote work using a server when you do not manage the server. Therefore, we recommend the companies that do not manage servers to implement hybrid work using cloud services.

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Lastly

Introducing hybrid work will allow employees to work more flexibly and make it easier for many people to work. However, it should be introduced carefully, especially with regard to security measures. If you can introduce hybrid work in this way, you can improve the efficiency of your work and reduce the labor required, which will help your company grow even bigger.