While leading companies like Amazon and Goldman Sachs have led the return-to-office push in the last year—and more than half of the Fortune 100 are back in the office to some degree—hybrid still remains king. According to Gallup, more than half of employees with remote-capable jobs work in hybrid arrangements, with 26% exclusively remote and 21% fully on-site.

To effectively capture the segment of the workforce jumping ship from organizations with mandated return-to-office policies, organizations need to intentionally refresh how they design their hybrid and remote-first environments, says Laura Maffucci, vice president and head of HR at G-P.

The global EOR provider was founded 14 years ago and has always been remote-first. To effectively support such an environment, HR needs to reshape its approach to everything from hiring to coaching to culture, Maffucci emphasizes.

“We’re doing it well,” she says. “We have a lower-than-average turnover rate and an easier time hiring employees.”

Finding balance in remote-first settings

Such success don’t happen overnight.

Beyond her own organization, Maffucci points to companies like GitLab and Rackspace, who she says lead with defined remote-first principles and playbooks. In particular, they are mindful about creating opportunities for people to gather in person for particular purposes.

Tech giant Cisco is approaching that need for intentionality in remote-first by emphasizing “workplace experience”—with office redesigns that leverage data on how employees use the space.

“Our view was, how do we make space a magnet?” says Bob Cicero, who leads workplace experience at Cisco.

After talent management platform provider Workleap shifted permanently to remote-first following the pandemic, it launched a twice-a-year, all-employee meeting at its headquarters. Kahina Ouerdane, chief people officer, says the event is like a “big reunion” that has driven engagement and connectivity.

Particularly at companies with a global presence, HR should be aware of the cultural norms around hybrid and remote working to offer opportunities that resonate with the local talent pool. For instance, G-P has hubs in India, where in-person working is more valued.

“It’s equally important to create other forms of connection for fully remote workforces,” Maffucci adds. “Especially with a globally dispersed workforce across multiple time zones, you have to have asynchronous down to a science.”

A new approach to hiring

Hybrid and remote environments are also challenging HR to rethink hiring norms and intentionally pursue candidates who could succeed in remote-first work.

“In hiring and interviewing, you have to be looking for certain behavioral characteristics that show someone could thrive in remote-first: self-motivation, the ability to take initiative, not needing a lot of direction, to be able to pick up and go,” Maffucci says.

To help remote and hybrid talent thrive, HR needs to first reframe its own ideas about performance—focusing on results and output, as opposed to facetime—in order to coach managers to do the same.

“A lot of managers struggle with this,” she says, “so, in HR, we have to up our game to coach managers for leading remote workforces.”

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