The new ‘hushed hybrid’ buzzword points to the real, ongoing challenges of RTO

The fight between business leaders and workers who refuse to comply with return-to-office mandates is nothing new. But the battle has a new buzzword: “hushed hybrid.”

According to TikToks, LinkedIn posts, and coverage from outlets like Inc, Business Insider, and Fox Business, some managers are allowing “hushed hybrid” work arrangements and disobeying top-down return-to-office orders. Instead, these supervisors are secretly allowing direct reports to set their own work arrangements.

“Hushed hybrid” follows a string of catchphrases about workers circumventing office attendance expectations, including “quiet vacationing” and “coffee badging.” It’s unclear how widespread “hushed hybrid” is—Joe Galvin, chief research officer at executive coaching organization Vistage, told Inc the trend highlights an emerging behavior in hybrid cultures but is not too common. But this new phrase and all of its predecessors may shine a spotlight on serious organizational dysfunction that can happen when RTO decisions are poorly executed and communicated, HR leaders and workplace experts told HR Brew.

Strict top-down office attendance policies can create an “us-versus-them” mentality between executives and staffers, prompting the latter to get the flexibility they want in secret.

“Successful work models rely on open communication and clear expectations from both leadership and employees,” Sasa Ferrari, vice president of global recruiting, talent development, and employee experience at SurveyMonkey, told HR Brew. “Hushed hybrid could create environments of secrecy and inequity between teams, and it doesn’t tackle the root of the issue, which is widespread demand for flexibility.”

Overall, workers and CEOs have reached a truce over hybrid work. Over half (53%) of US employees whose jobs allow for remote work were in hybrid arrangements, according to May 2024 data from Gallup. And nearly 84% of workers say they adhere to their employer’s hybrid policy always or most weeks, according to Gallup data shared with HR Brew. And many CEOs have backed off on strict RTO plans: just 34% of US CEOs surveyed earlier this year by KPMG expect a full return to the office in the next three years, a stark decline from the 62% who reported the same expectations last year.

Some research indicates that allowing managers to set work arrangement policies for individual teams is good for business. A 2023 Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey of 1,500 office workers found that employees at companies with top-down hybrid policies were more likely to be unhappy with their work arrangements than employees whose policies were set by managers or decided by their team.

“If you are solving for efficiency and effectiveness and employee joy, hybrid work—decided at the team level where they’re closest to the people and the work—is the right place to optimize for both,” Debbie Lovich, a managing director and senior partner at BCG, told HR Brew. “Leaders need to care about employee joy…because employees who enjoy their work are half as likely to quit.”

Rethink RTO. It’s time business leaders reconsider their approach to executing RTO policies. HR leaders and other executives should engage in open conversations with employees to understand what flexibility employees want and what parts of their jobs truly require them to work from the office, Luck Dookchitra, VP of people and culture and employee engagement software platform Leapsome, told HR Brew. And it’s important to make the office worth commuting to. Pizza or ice cream parties may sound corny, but employees want to use in-office time for connecting with colleagues, and these events can serve as a launching pad for that.

“HR leaders and business leaders must listen to their employees before making decisions like this. Employee feedback is a really valuable part of creating successful HR policies,” Ferrari said. “This does not mean that physical offices are unnecessary by any means. If employees want to work in a hybrid manner, and it makes sense for their role, companies can be more strategic about in-person touch points and using the office as a place for collaboration and team building.”