Hybrid work isn’t working. Here’s how HR can help.

After the pandemic, hybrid work seemed to be the perfect solution to the remote vs. in-office debate…but does that still ring true today?

The majority (72%) of employees feel positively about hybrid work, according to 2025 data from commercial real estate firm JLL, and 35% view hybrid schedules as “the fairest” option. But only 7% of job listings offer a hybrid work option, according to January data from career platform JobLeads, compared to the 87% for in-person and 6% for remote roles.

Since employers currently have the upper hand in the labor market, they may choose to advertise roles as in-person when “the reality might be a bit more flexible,” Peter Miscovich, executive managing director and global future of work leader at JLL, told HR Brew. “A lot of companies may not hire with the specific categorization of ‘hybrid,’ because it’s sometimes difficult to define,” he added.

Is hybrid work working? Some of the biggest HR challenges with hybrid mandates are enforcement and compliance, Miscovich said. Trends like hushed hybrid and task masking show employees’ resistance to office-attendance requirements, and how some companies may, as a result, not enforce them as strongly, he added.

Another trend emerging within hybrid workflows is “a trifurcation” of experiences between employees in different career stages, he said. Early-career employees may want more time in the office to find mentors, while executives may find themselves in the office more due to their demanding workload, Miscovich said. Four or five days of in-person work a week may make sense for them.

But mid-level employees, who have proven themselves and tend to be in life stages with more caregiving responsibilities, may choose flexibility over going into the office, making two or three days in the office better for them, he said.

“A lot of organizations post-pandemic have just been struggling to make that hybrid/return-to-office experience truly, intentionally rewarding,” Miscovich said. “The leading companies that we’re working with are trying to create that level of intentionality and employee delight across those various trifurcated profile groups.”

How to make hybrid work better. In-office policies are most effective when leaders are good coaches and role models for employees, Kim Rowan, co-founder of leadership coaching and consulting firm Lead for Growth, told HR Brew. “We need to be doing a lot more of that in this hybrid world than we’ve ever done before,” she said.

“Policies alone don’t change behavior, systems and expectations do,” she said. “Helping leaders understand they need to shift from that present-based oversight, like, ‘Are you active?’ to more of, ‘Are you effective?’”

HR can help managers focus on employees’ output vs. input. Input may be how many hours or days they spend in the office, while output is the goals and projects accomplished.

“The companies that take the time to map out the work that needs to be done, and when people need to be in the office, are seeing more success versus just saying, ‘I want everybody in the office,’” Rowan said.