Hybrid Working Policy Guide for Small Businesses
Hybrid working is a wonderful thing. There’s a reason why it’s stuck around even after the social distancing mandates of the pandemic.
A hybrid work model offers the best of both worlds: the in-person interaction of an office setting with the flexibility and freedom of remote work.
I understand that a hybrid work model is still very new territory for a lot of people though. That’s why I wanted to make this guide for you on how to create an effective hybrid work policy — one that balances the flexibility of remote work with the togetherness of in-person work.
I’ve seen it work wonders here at Charlie. And after you read this guide, you’ll see how it can work for you too.
What is a hybrid working policy?
A hybrid working policy, or flexible working policy, outlines how employees can split their time between your in-person workspace and other locations — including working from home.
Your hybrid work policy sets out what’s expected from employees, and what support you offer in return. Your policy may explain what percentage of days they’re required to work in the office, whether you have a budget for remote work equipment, and how to manage data when working remotely.
Hybrid work policies help employees achieve a better work-life balance, can improve employee wellbeing, and can help you attract and retain the best talent.
Why you need a hybrid working policy
A significant number of people in the UK have stated their preference for remote and hybrid working arrangements when given the option. In 2022, 84% of employees in the UK stated their intention to carry on with a mix of working at home and working in their office.
Hybrid working is here to stay, so you need a policy that makes your approach clear for everyone. A transparent hybrid working or flexible working policy allows you to set expectations, handle requests, and manage arrangements confidently.
Introducing a hybrid working has plenty of benefits for your small business, including:
- Higher levels of employee happiness — hybrid workers can reduce their commute and have more control over their everyday routines, leading to physical and mental health benefits
- More inclusivity — a mix of work environments allows you to support diverse needs and working patterns, offering support for those with dependents and caring responsibilities
- Higher levels of productivity — employees can choose the right environment for the task, allowing them to focus and get more done
- Better employee retention — offering flexible working makes your business more attractive to potential employees
- Improved company culture — employees can meet up with coworkers in-person and build connections with team members
- Compliance with UK laws and regulations — including the need to conduct risk assessments and protect worker health and safety, maintain clear employment contracts, and respect the flexible working law and flexible working requests.
Hybrid work offers a multitude of benefits, but without proper management it’s hard for employees to understand what you offer and it’s difficult to manage challenging situations or misuse. With a clear hybrid work policy, everyone knows what to expect and can deal with any issues in a transparent and consistent way.
What to include in your hybrid working policy
It’s coming to the point where your small business needs a hybrid work policy, but what should it look like? While every company’s approach will be different, there are some key elements your policy should include.
Here’s what to cover within your hybrid work policy:
- Definition of hybrid work — outline your interpretation of what hybrid work is, so there’s no confusion
- Legal rights — explain relevant legislation and any legal rights that apply, including access to flexible working arrangements and reasonable adjustments
- Eligibility criteria — include which roles or departments the policy applies to, or whether it’s open to all
- Work hours and availability — define any core or expected hours, or any times when employees are expected to be available
- Working locations — confirm any eligible or ineligible working locations, and any restrictions on countries for remote work purposes
- Communication — explain how to handle communication with their line manager and hybrid team members when working remotely, for example by using email or Slack
- Data protection and security — outline data privacy and security requirements, and explain why this is important
- Equipment provision — confirm whether you’ll supply a laptop and other equipment, offer a homeworking setup budget, or something else
- Health and safety — explain your legal requirements and the support you offer when it comes to health and safety in the workplace and when working remotely
- Travel expenses — confirm how you’ll handle travel expenses away from their typical place of work
- Performance management — explain how you create and monitor KPIs, progress, and goal attainment
- Policy misuse — confirm what happens if the policy is not followed or is misused
- Feedback — explain how staff members can give feedback, and how this feedback is acted on
- Complaints procedure — explain how employees can challenge a decision or make a complaint
It may seem like a lot, but a solid hybrid work policy protects you, your data, and your reputation, while allowing your employees the freedom to work from an environment that matches their preferences.
Get started with our free hybrid working policy template
You don’t need to create your own policy from scratch. We’ve worked with our expert HR advisors to put together a free hybrid work policy template that includes everything you need to get started.
Download the template now to move past the “blank screen” stage and start your journey towards an effective hybrid work policy for your small business.
How to introduce your hybrid working policy in 5 steps
Coming up with an effective hybrid work policy is more than just writing down your expectations. It’s a collaborative process that involves employee feedback, expert advice, and a successful pilot or launch.
Here’s how to approach the process from start to finish so you can introduce a policy that works for all.
1. Gather employee feedback
A new approach to hybrid working affects everyone, so it’s best to get employees onboard with the concept from the start. Ask employees for feedback early, so you can consider their needs and preferences as you draft the policy.
Send out a feedback survey to understand employee sentiment and gather ideas. Ask about their preference for hybrid or remote work, what they think the policy should include, and get feedback on potential hybrid working practices that you’re considering.
2. Draft the initial policy
With feedback now in from your employees, start reviewing it and looking for trends, opportunities, and challenges. It’s important that the policy balances your needs as a small business with their desire for work-life balance and employee wellbeing.
Start drafting your policy using our free template and guidance to make sure you cover all the key sections. Make sure it aligns with your business goals, company values, and company culture, and try your best to respect feedback from your employees.
3. Review with legal and HR
Before you rush ahead and introduce your policy, check for any legal implications of doing so. If you’re not a legal expert, now is the time to consult with a professional or get advice from a HR expert.
As with any policy or procedure, it’s essential that your plans respect employees’ legal rights and are compliant with relevant legislation. Our expert HR advisors can support you through the process and help you refine your policy so it’s not just compliant but effective.
4. Communicate the policy
With your plan finished, it’s almost time to roll it out to your team. Before you do though, plan your rollout and a communications plan to match.
Promote the new policy on your company newsletter, within team meetings, and across any internal platforms your teams use. Make sure the policy and your communications are clear, and that employees know who to approach with any questions.
If you use Charlie as your HR platform, you can store all your policies in one place — making it easy for everyone to find, read, and reference when they need to.
5. Launch the pilot phase
Your hybrid work policy has been written and finalised, but the work isn’t finished. Consider the first launch of any policy as a pilot phase, and leave room for feedback, improvement, and refinement.
Encourage employees to read the policy and make changes to their working schedule to align with it. See whether it’s working or not, and encourage them to offer feedback on both the good and the bad. This stage is an opportunity for you to adjust the policy so it’s as effective as possible.
Hybrid working policy best practices
You’re not writing HR policies every day, so it’s not always easy to know how to get started or what a good hybrid working policy looks like.
As you work on your policy, here are best practices and tips to keep in mind:
- Make it clear — outline the expectations, including core hours and communication
- Foster open communication — have regular team meetings and one-on-one check-ins with team members to make sure everyone is in sync
- Update your onboarding process — review your onboarding process (especially for remote workers) to make sure it’s aligned with your policy
- Encourage feedback — the policy only works effectively if the balance is right, so actively invite feedback from employees
- Review role suitability — assess which roles are suitable for remote work, and update your hybrid work policy accordingly
- Stay flexible — adjust your policy when you need to based on new insights, resources, technology, legislation, or feedback
- If in doubt, ask — don’t be afraid to seek out the advice of legal or HR experts on your policy wording or processes.
Think of this process as one of constant change and development. Build your hybrid work policy now, and let it be the foundation for future iterations as your company grows and develops.
Real-world examples of hybrid working policies
Still not sure what hybrid working should look like at your small business? I’d like to offer some real-world case studies of hybrid work in action from a mix of industry giants and small businesses, so you can get inspiration for your own plans.
Microsoft’s preset policy
At Microsoft, the hybrid work rules are clear. Employees have to be in the office for a certain number of days per week. This approach offers structure and visibility and makes it easier for managers to guide team dynamics and in-person collaboration. The downside is that it may not offer the flexibility that a lot of employees desire.
Patriot Software
Patriot Software is a small business that offers payroll and accounting solutions. Employees have core hours they’re expected to be online, but are free to choose when those hours are. This approach offers a good balance of structure with flexibility. It’s also inclusive because it’s highly adaptable to different work schedules.
Doist
Doist, a company that specialises in productivity solutions, has fully embraced remote work and allows its employees to work from anywhere. However, they also maintain a physical office for anyone who prefers to use it.
To minimise disruptions, they make use of asynchronous communication. People update on the go, and it keeps everyone on the same page. This offers a high degree of flexibility that encourages creative solutions to problems and higher productivity. However, it also requires discipline and stronger boundaries between work and personal life.
The evolution of hybrid work at Charlie
At Charlie, we went from a full-time in-the-office model to a hybrid model during COVID-19. It worked beautifully during this testing period, so we stuck with it.
One of the reasons for our success is that we used a set of core values to guide our transition to hybrid work.
Those values are:
- Structured flexibility — remote work is a wonderful thing, but it needs to be guided by reasonable boundaries and rules. Our hybrid work policy should align with our business objectives as well as core values. For us, this includes attending mandatory meetings, in-person events, and working 7 hours per day.
- Ownership — how we do hybrid work at Charlie enables our team members to take ownership of their work, including where and how they work, without having someone breathe down their neck.
- Belonging — in a mostly remote workplace, there needs to be ways to still connect with each other, like our twice-a-year meetups, in-office team events, and online clubs. That is key to a motivated workplace and to effective teamwork.
How can you implement structure without taking away your team members' autonomy? How do you give them space to take ownership of their work? How do you create that sense of belonging even when team members are working from their homes?
Those have been key questions for us, and you’ll need to ask them yourself too as you make your hybrid work policy.
To help you make those decisions, I’m sharing Charlie’s hybrid work policy below. It’s a useful place to start if you’re looking for a policy that’s built with a small business in mind.
Our hybrid working policy
Our approach to the office and remote work is hybrid-first.
We want everyone to have ownership over where they work and how they get their work done — we believe operating a hybrid-first model is the best way to achieve that. This will mean different things for different organisations, but our definition at Charlie is:
We aim to optimise for office and remote working to be valued equally, and to be equally valuable.
There are 3 ways of working that sit within hybrid-first. We cover off all 3 in this policy:
- Office working
- Remote working (what we call working in the UK from anywhere that isn’t the office)
- Nomad working (what we call working outside of the UK in any timezone)
We always use our principle of structured flexibility to design our policies. We know this is particularly important when considering our hybrid-first policy for a few reasons:
- We want people to feel confident and clear how to take advantage of it
- Because we’ve chosen a hybrid-first approach, we need to make sure that our guidance for nomad working doesn’t have an unfairly negative impact on those who are office working or vice versa. It’s all about balance!
What’s our general approach to hybrid-first working at Charlie? ✨
We have no set number of days that you need to be in the office (most of the team plan to use the office on average 1-2 times/week) meaning you can work remotely most of the time if that’s what suits you (below this is broken down in a bit more detail).
Wherever you’re choosing to work from (remote or nomad working) must be an environment where you can work well (e.g. have minimal distractions, have good enough internet for collaboration etc.). If this isn’t the case we’ll ask that you book it off as holiday.
Our decision to not be fully remote is because we still strongly believe in the power of spending time together in person to foster a sense of belonging and to build meaningful relationships that allow us to do our jobs better.
This is why we still have two compulsory whole company meetups a year; these are booked in far in advance to make sure as many people as possible can attend.
We’d love for people to be there for them both, but are flexible for people to miss one if you are on holiday, nomad working, or if you’re a part-time worker and it falls on one of your non-working days.
We also encourage four or so Function meetups per year which will be organised on a more ad-hoc basis and allow your team to come together in person.
So how does remote working work?
As defined above, our definition of remote working is when you’re working anywhere from the UK that isn’t the office. This could be from home in London, from a cafe, other office locations, from Wales for a week, if you live in Edinburgh as your main home... You get the idea! You can work remotely as much as you like (aside from the company and function meetups listed above).
And how does nomad working work?
Nomad working at Charlie means working anywhere outside of the UK in any timezone. Everyone at Charlie has a nomad working allowance of 90 days per leave year.
Making hybrid work for you
A hybrid working policy gives you the benefits of remote work while still keeping a reasonable measure of control and accountability. You can design a policy that supports your business goals and needs, and also offers your employees plenty of flexibility and autonomy.
Use this guide to help you plan, draft, and introduce a hybrid work policy that works for your business. As you update not just this policy but others, our HR policies hub can support you with advice, best practice, and tips on how to approach policies from a small business perspective.
Common questions about hybrid working policies
Still have some unanswered lingering questions? I’d like to take a moment and address some common concerns when it comes to writing and introducing hybrid working policies.
What are the legal considerations for implementing a hybrid working policy?
Employers are obligated to follow UK employment laws, including health and safety regulations — regardless of whether they have employees who come into the office space or not. For further advice on this, read through the Acas guidelines on home and hybrid working policies.
How can we track productivity in a hybrid work environment?
This one is a pretty common concern. Offering hybrid work options involves putting a lot of trust in your team.
I advise tracking performance metrics that focus on output and meaningful results rather than time spent working. Think of KPIs like project completion rates, client satisfaction scores, and other relevant metrics for a given role.
Of course, time-tracking software such as Toggl or Trello is also helpful to keep track of tasks and make sure deadlines are met.
