Teambridg's Mid-Year Report: The State of Hybrid Work

The Largest Hybrid Work Dataset We've Published

Since launching Hybrid Location Insights in April, we've been collecting and analyzing hybrid work patterns across our customer base. Today, we're publishing our mid-year report based on aggregated, anonymized data from over 2,000 teams and 18,000 individual contributors.

This is, to our knowledge, the largest analysis of actual hybrid work patterns published to date. Most existing studies rely on surveys (what people say they do). Our data shows what people actually do — measured through work pattern analytics, not self-reports. Let me share the five key findings.

Finding 1: Remote Days Produce More Focus Time

Across all teams in our dataset, employees averaged 18% more focus time on remote days compared to office days. Focus time was defined as uninterrupted blocks of 90+ minutes. The median remote-day focus time was 3.8 hours; the median office-day focus time was 3.2 hours.

The primary driver was meetings. Office days averaged 27% more meeting hours than remote days. Even in hybrid offices designed for collaboration, the presence of colleagues led to more ad hoc meetings, walk-by interruptions, and impromptu discussions. These aren't necessarily bad — they're the organic collaboration offices are designed for — but they come at the cost of deep work.

Implication: Hybrid schedules should deliberately assign focus work to remote days and collaborative work to office days. Don't let office days become generic — purpose them for the interactions that benefit most from co-location.

Finding 2: Collaboration Quality Is Uneven

While meeting quantity was higher on office days, the quality of collaboration (measured through cross-functional interaction frequency and meeting participation breadth) was inconsistent across hybrid models.

Teams using anchor days (fixed days when most or all of the team is in the office) showed 40% higher cross-functional collaboration than teams with fully flexible schedules. But teams with no coordination at all — where individuals chose their office days independently — showed lower collaboration than fully remote teams. People came to the office on different days and ended up doing Zoom calls alone from a desk.

Finding 3: Wellbeing Scores Improved with Flexibility

Teams with genuine flexibility (employees choosing their own remote/office split) showed the highest Team Health Scores, particularly on the wellbeing dimension. Teams with mandatory office schedules scored lower on wellbeing, even when the mandated schedule included remote days.

The finding suggests that autonomy itself is a wellbeing driver, independent of the specific schedule. An employee who chooses to come to the office four days a week has higher wellbeing indicators than one who is required to do so — even though the actual behavior is identical.

Finding 4: Proximity Bias Is Real and Measurable

This finding should concern every hybrid leader. In hybrid teams, employees who spent more time in the office received 28% more collaborative interactions, were included in 15% more meetings, and had more diverse cross-team connections than their remote-heavy peers — even when controlling for role and seniority.

This is proximity bias in action: people who are physically present are more visible, more likely to be pulled into conversations, and more likely to be top-of-mind when opportunities arise. Over time, this creates a two-tier workforce where office-centric employees advance faster and remote-heavy employees plateau.

Implication: Active intervention is needed to prevent proximity bias. This includes: equalizing meeting access (all-on-video for hybrid meetings), deliberate inclusion of remote employees in ad hoc discussions ("let me loop in Jamie who's remote today"), and measuring collaboration equity using tools like Teambridg's equity alerts.

Finding 5: Hybrid Work Is Still Being Figured Out

Perhaps the most honest finding: hybrid work patterns are still highly volatile. Week-to-week consistency in office/remote splits is low. Teams are still experimenting with schedules, norms, and tools. Very few have settled into a steady state.

This shouldn't be discouraging — it's expected. Hybrid work as a large-scale organizational model is less than a year old. The companies that will get it right are the ones that treat this as an ongoing experiment rather than a solved problem. Measure, iterate, measure again.

The full mid-year report is available for download at teambridg.com/reports/hybrid-2021. It includes industry-specific breakdowns, company size analysis, and geographic patterns. If you're shaping your organization's hybrid strategy, this data should be part of your decision-making toolkit.