From Rigid Rules to Real Strategy: A Diasporic Perspective on Hybrid Work

Published April 2, 2026

Introduction

As someone of Indian heritage born in the Caribbean and now working in executive search in North America, I’ve experienced how dramatically expectations around work—presence, leadership, performance—can shift depending on where you are. And yet, in every setting, I’ve noticed a persistent undercurrent: a belief that proximity equals commitment, that being seen in person equals being effective, and that the office is where ‘real’ work happens.

These beliefs don’t always sound explicit, but they shape decisions—especially now, as organizations grapple with the future of hybrid work. Across industries, many have landed on a policy that feels like a compromise: ‘Let’s have everyone in the office one or two days a week.’ It feels fair. Practical. Balanced.

But if we look more closely—especially from the perspective of those whose work or lives fall outside traditional moulds—this kind of mandate starts to look less like strategy and more like structure for its own sake. To build truly inclusive hybrid workplaces, we need to ask different questions—not just how often people come in, but why, for whom, and to what end.

The Research is Clear: Hybrid Work Works

In a 2024 randomized control trial published in Nature, Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom, along with co-authors Ruobing Han and James Liang, examined the long-term effects of hybrid working at Trip.com, a global firm headquartered in Shanghai. The study followed 1,612 university-educated employees over six months. Half of them were randomly assigned to work from home two days per week, while the other half continued working in the office full time (Bloom, Han, & Liang, 2024).

The findings were striking. Hybrid workers were just as productive as their in-office peers, and there was no significant difference in performance reviews or promotion rates across the two groups—even when tracked over a two-year period. In highly quantifiable roles such as software engineering, there was also no difference in lines of code produced. What did change, however, was job satisfaction and retention. Employees working hybrid schedules reported higher work-life balance and overall morale. Most notably, the hybrid group experienced a 33% drop in attrition rates. The effect was even more pronounced for women (54% drop), non-managers (40% drop), and those with long commutes (up to 52%).

As a search partner working closely with organizations to strengthen their leadership pipelines, I see this not just as validation of hybrid work—it’s evidence that flexibility, when implemented well, protects talent. And for those historically excluded from leadership opportunities—such as the examples of women above—these models often determine whether someone stays, grows, or quietly disengages.

The Executive Bias: Beliefs vs. Experience

While research increasingly supports hybrid models, many senior leaders remain unconvinced. In a longitudinal survey of more than 11,000 employees conducted by the Center for Workforce Transformation between July 2024 and January 2025, 61% of respondents said their organizations had tightened return-to-office (RTO) expectations—often under the belief that in-person presence improves performance, collaboration, and culture (Warman, 2025).

And yet, nearly half of employees surveyed stated that they would consider quitting if asked to return to the office more frequently. Ironically, the same study showed that executives are among the most likely to work remotely themselves—while enforcing stricter policies for others.

Proximity bias—or officism, as defined in the Perceptyx study above—suggests that those physically present in the workplace are perceived as more committed and promotable. The consequences of this mindset are far-reaching, particularly in hybrid settings where visibility is uneven by design. In addition, the Bloom et al. study highlighted an especially telling detail: although hybrid work greatly benefited women in terms of retention, women were also less likely to volunteer for the experiment—likely due to concerns about how choosing flexibility would be perceived. This is a pattern I’ve seen in real-time across leadership assessments. When flexibility is framed as optional or exceptional, many individuals, particularly women and racialized professionals, fear that using it will be seen as a signal of lesser ambition.

This disconnect between leadership assumptions and employee realities is both striking and familiar. Having lived and worked across cultural systems—from the Caribbean to North America—I’ve seen how power can become insulated from the lived experiences it seeks to govern. This isn’t always intentional. But when decisions are shaped more by habit than evidence, we begin to confuse structure with strategy—and comfort with effectiveness. From a diasporic perspective, this resonates deeply. Too often, navigating systems not built with us in mind requires an extra layer of calculation: Will this choice cost me credibility? Will it be misunderstood? If hybrid work is to be equitable, it can’t be conditional. It must be designed, not granted. And it must be evaluated based on output—not optics.

A Human Centred Strategy

A common response to the hybrid debate is to settle on a middle-ground mandate—two or three days in the office for everyone. It sounds reasonable. But such policies often replicate the very inefficiencies they were meant to solve. The real question isn’t how many days we mandate. It’s what kind of work we’re doing on those days. Hybrid work, at its best, is organized around the activity, not the calendar. Collaborative work, team strategy, onboarding, and mentorship benefit from in-person engagement. Focused execution and deep individual tasks often flourish in quieter, more flexible environments.

In my opinion, organizations that treat the office as an intentional space, not an obligatory one, are worth studying more carefully. Presence becomes purposeful—designed to foster interaction and cohesion, not to uphold outdated norms of supervision or performative visibility. That approach not only respects people’s time—it respects their intelligence. I see every hybrid policy not as a schedule—but as a signal. It tells employees what the organization values, how leadership thinks, and whether trust is transactional or earned.

A thoughtful hybrid model begins with curiosity. It means asking employees what they need—not to accommodate every preference, but to understand recurring patterns. It means transparency about how visibility intersects with recognition. And it requires designing internal systems that measure contribution equitably, regardless of where that work takes place. When it comes to hybrid, that means asking:

Some practices we’ve seen work well:

But more than anything, such practices require humility: a willingness to listen, test, and evolve. I believe inclusion lives in these details: how meetings are run, how success is tracked, how managers are trained to lead across time zones and screens. The best strategies don’t assume alignment—they foster it. They treat feedback not as risk, but as resource. And they adapt in response to what they learn.

Conclusion

Too often, the hybrid work debate is reduced to a binary: should we bring people back to the office or let them stay home? But as a woman shaped by multiple cultural systems—Indian heritage, Caribbean upbringing, North American leadership—I believe this framing misses the point. The real questions are deeper: What kind of work are we enabling? What kinds of relationships are we sustaining? And who are we designing for? Ultimately, our mission, vision, and values should guide whether hybrid work aligns with who we are as an organization. If our work model isn’t rooted in our core identity, misalignment will show up—in retention challenges, disengagement, and even harm to our brand.

Hybrid work, when approached with intention, can remove barriers. It can strengthen retention. It gives people space to show up as whole professionals—not as performers navigating outdated expectations. But that only happens if we stop managing presence and start cultivating trust. Inclusion isn’t just about inviting more people into the room. It’s about ensuring the room reflects the lives they actually lead—and then going further: implementing policies and practices that promote participation from all members, addressing systemic biases, and fostering a culture where diverse perspectives are not only welcomed but actively shape decisions.

By prioritizing inclusion, organizations can harness the full potential of their diverse workforce—unlocking greater innovation, deeper collaboration, and stronger overall performance. It’s not just about where people work. It’s about how—and for whom—the workplace is built.

Bibliography

Bloom, N., Han, R., & Liang, J. (2024). Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance. Nature, 630, 920-925. Retrieved from https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07500-2

Warman, Z. (2025). The Return-to-Office Debate: One Year Later, Where Do We Stand? Retrieved from https://blog.percepty

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Urmilla Mahabirsingh

Partner