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Work-From-Home is Here to Stay: Call for Flexibility in Post-Pandemic Work Policies
Darja Smite, Nils Brede Moe, Jarle Hildrum, Javier Gonzalez Huerta, Daniel Mendez
TL;DR
The paper addresses how technology companies should organize post-pandemic work amid employee demand for flexibility and concerns about remote collaboration. It combines evidence from 17 companies, employee-preference surveys, and corporate policy analysis, finding broader flexibility with substantial variation across organizations and a shift toward treating WFH as an employee entitlement.
Problem
Post-pandemic companies need evidence on employee work-location preferences and policies that balance flexibility with concerns about remote collaboration.
Method
The study analyzes 23 corporate surveys, 26 post-pandemic work policies, and selected stratified and longitudinal analyses from 17 companies.
Results
All companies formally provide more flexibility, but the amount varies with industry, company size, and corporate culture; WFH becomes a core privilege rather than an exclusive perk.
Takeaways & Limitations
Hybrid workplaces commonly mix office and WFH days, with office-presence decisions often delegated to teams or immediate managers.
Abstract
from arXiv · showhide
In early 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic forced employees in tech companies worldwide to abruptly transition from working in offices to working from their homes. During two years of predominantly working from home, employees and managers alike formed expectations about what post-pandemic working life should look like. Many companies are currently experimenting with new work policies that balance both employee- and manager expectations to where, when and how work should be done in the future. In this article, we gather experiences from 17 companies and their sites, covering 12 countries. We share the results of corporate surveys of employee preferences for working from home and analyse new work policies. Our results are threefold. First, through the new work policies all companies are formally giving more flexibility to the employees with regards to working time and work location. Second, there is a great variation in how much flexibility the companies are willing to yield to the employees. The variation is related both to industry type, size of the companies, and company culture. Third, we document a change in the psychological contract between employees and managers, where the option of working from home is converted from an exclusive perk that managers could choose to give to the few, to a core privilege that all employees feel they are entitled to. Finally, there are indications that as the companies learn and solicit feedback regarding the efficiency of the chosen strategies, we might see further developments and changes of the work policies with respect to how much flexibility to work whenever and from anywhere they grant. Through these findings, the paper contributes to a growing literature about the new trends emerging from the pandemic in tech companies and spells out practical implications onwards.
1 Blekinge Institute of Technology, 2 SINTEF, 3 Telenor, 4 fortiss
The section frames post-pandemic work as a shift toward flexibility, while noting concerns about remote collaboration and knowledge transfer. It studies employee preferences and corporate policies across technology companies to describe emerging hybrid-work arrangements.
- WFH preferences are shaped by better-than-expected experiences, enabling investments, reduced stigma, contagion concerns, and technological innovation.
- Remote work may make collaboration networks more static and siloed, potentially affecting knowledge transfer, productivity, and innovation.
- The surveyed companies use policies to set expectations about office presence and behavior in hybrid work situations.
- The study examines work policies and employee preferences across 17 companies using 23 internal surveys and 26 post-pandemic policies.
- The data integrates varied survey response options into common categories covering office-based, remote-based, and flexible or hybrid preferences.
N Rate Executed
Employee preferences generally favor hybrid work, but desired office presence varies by role, age, commute, company, and time. Companies respond with policies that expand flexibility while imposing restrictions, coordination requirements, exceptions, and relocation boundaries.
- Employee preferences: 10% is the median share preferring primarily office work, while office-only preferences reach 38% at SpanCo and 15% at Blank.SpanCo offered only a binary office-versus-remote choice.
- Employee preferences: The vast majority prefer hybrid arrangements, associating home with concentration and offices with collaboration.Younger employees living in homes less suited to concentration may instead prefer office-based uninterrupted work.
- Employee preferences: WFH preferences are situational: repeated surveys show changing opinions, and Tietoevry employees shifted substantially relative to their pre-pandemic choices.At Tietoevry, roughly one-fifth of previously mostly-office employees preferred visiting less than weekly, while roughly one-fifth of mostly-remote employees preferred visiting 3–4 days per week.
- Employee preferences: Managers prefer more office presence than other employees, younger employees prefer more office presence than seniors, and office preference is three times higher in smaller towns than Oslo.Gender differences were not significant overall, although women aged 30–40 showed a slightly higher WFH preference in Telenor Norway.
- Company policies: Most companies established new WFH policies, with slightly more than half restricting the extent of remote work.Restrictions include office-day requirements, limits on remote days, special remote status, and binding choices over longer periods.
- Company policies: Individual flexibility is constrained by team coordination, binding arrangements, role or performance exceptions, equipment requirements, and limits on relocation.Most companies primarily allow relocation within the same country, while Storebrand also uses reduced business travel as a reason to limit distance from the office.
Concluding discussion
The study finds that employees’ demand for flexibility is reshaping work policies toward hybrid arrangements, while companies continue to weigh collaboration, culture, and knowledge-sharing concerns. Policies are expected to evolve as firms gain experience and renegotiate the psychological contract around working from home.
- The majority of surveyed employees demand flexibility, but companies cannot satisfy all preferences because employee needs vary greatly.Related US and UK surveys similarly report preferences for working from home two or three days per week after the pandemic.
- Hybrid workplaces are the common denominator, combining office and home days while often delegating office-presence decisions to teams or immediate managers.
- Mandatory office presence can be perceived as discriminatory, reversing earlier stigma against flexible work and increasing employees’ willingness to leave restrictive employers.The paper cites evidence that 40% of employees working from home would seek another job if required to return full time.
- Companies may increasingly differentiate between remote-first and office-first teams or firms according to industry characteristics, corporate culture, and the value placed on close collaboration.Some companies fear that reduced physical presence will harm innovation, competence development, knowledge sharing, culture, and belonging.
- Work-from-home policies are expected to change as companies accumulate experience with hybrid work and engage in dialogue about the psychological contract between employees and employers.Past policy choices may shape future policies because employees increasingly view working from home as an entitlement.