Episode 237 · 2 October 2025 · 53:23

Is hybrid the worst of all worlds? With Professors Ina Purvanova and Alanah Mitchell, authors of The New Workplace"

Featuring Ina Purvanova, Alanah Mitchell

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The 'soulless husk' story
panel interview#young workers #disengagement #workplace culture
Who are Ina and Alanah?
panel interview#researcher #academic #workplace
What is workplace alignment?
panel interview#workplace alignment #fit #definition
The nine work personas — officers, avatars, and integrators
panel interview#work personas #officers #avatars #integrators
How personas shift with life stage and role
panel interview#persona shifts #life stage #role
The surprising trend of female executives preferring the office
panel interview#female executives #office preference #hybrid work
Why hybrid might be the worst of both worlds
panel interview#hybrid work #drawbacks #workplace strategy
Is there a perfect solution?
panel interview#workplace solutions #hybrid #future of work
The two levels of alignment
panel interview#alignment levels #individual #organizational
Task-location fit: 'locate for your day'
panel interview#task-location fit #work from home #office
Who decides the workplace strategy?
panel interview#workplace policy #decision making #leadership
The 65% alignment problem — and what happens to the other 35%
panel interview#alignment percentage #misalignment #employee engagement
When misalignment means losing your best people
panel interview#misalignment #talent retention #turnover
How to measure alignment in your organisation
panel interview#measuring alignment #surveys #assessment
Would we be here without the pandemic?
panel interview#pandemic #workplace change #remote work
Young workers and the 'soulless husk' phenomenon
panel interview#young workers #soulless husk #disengagement
How life stages change workplace preferences
panel interview#life stages #workplace preferences #career
Recruitment: stop selling the fantasy
panel interview#recruitment #hiring #realistic job preview
Who should read *The New Workplace*?
panel interview#book #workplace #audience
Where to find Ina and Alanah
outro#author #contact #book
Predictions for 2050
panel interview#future of work #predictions #2050

Show notes

Why Hybrid Might Be the Worst of All Worlds — with Professors Ina Purvanova and Alanah Mitchell

Guest: Professors Ina Purvanova and Alanah Mitchell — authors of The New Workplace, researchers at Drake University who've spent years mapping remote, hybrid, and in-office work arrangements.

What if hybrid working isn't the best of both worlds, but actually the worst?

Ina and Alanah join Al and Leanne to share their research on nine distinct work personas — from "officers" who never want to leave the office, to "avatars" who live entirely online, to "integrators" trying to bridge both worlds. Their data reveals that 65% of workers are now aligned with their company's workplace strategy, but that still leaves 35% struggling with misalignment that affects engagement, commitment, and ultimately performance.

They dig into why hybrid can create more conflict than clarity, how leaders can move teams from misaligned to at least half-aligned, and heartbreaking stories of young workers describing themselves as "soulless husks" when forced to work remotely. Plus, why female executives surprisingly prefer the office, and how task-location fit might matter more than any blanket policy.

Top 3 Takeaways

Hybrid is not a strategy — it's a battleground. Without intentional design, hybrid workplaces pit officers against avatars, creating more conflict than clarity. The goal isn't a policy; it's alignment between people's preferences and the work they actually do.
Task-location fit matters more than blanket rules. Instead of "dress for your day," think "locate for your day." Heads-down coding? Remote. Collaborative brainstorming? In-person. The best organisations match the task to the location, not the person to a policy.
Misalignment is a retention risk you can't ignore. 35% of workers are currently misaligned with their company's workplace strategy. Those people are less engaged, less committed, and more likely to leave. Honest job previews about work arrangements aren't just ethical — they're strategic.

Connect With Us

Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect

Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

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Ina PurvanovaSome of our most, almost heartbreaking, I would say, interviews were with young people who had to work from home. They felt lonely. One of them talked about being depressed. One of them talked about feeling like a soulless husk. I mean, who says that? I'm a soulless husk?

Al ElliottThat is Professor Ina Purvanova, along with Professor Alanah Mitchell, who we'll hear from in just a second. She's been studying the world of hybrid, remote, and in-office workplaces for years. And more importantly, what impact this has on people forced to work in an environment that just doesn't suit them.

Alanah MitchellThat woman was counting every task she did because she had to be in the office to do them. If she would've maybe just been given a flexible assignment where she had a hybrid role versus an in-office role, she might've been able to find some happiness there. She ultimately ended up leaving that company because she just was too upset about where she was working.

Leanne ElliottThis research into remote, hybrid, and in-office work turned up countless stories like these, stories of people fed up, burnt out, or just worn down by the mismatch between where they had to work and where they worked best.

Al ElliottToday we're asking the question every leader needs to face: what if hybrid isn't the best of both worlds, but it's actually the worst?

Leanne ElliottIna and Alanah have spent years mapping 9 different work personas, from the offices who never want to leave the office to the avatars who live entirely online, and the integrators trying to bridge both worlds.

Al ElliottAnd in this conversation, you'll hear what happens when those worlds collide, why hybrid can feel like a trap, and what you, the leader, can do to stop alignment problems turning into resignations.

Leanne ElliottHello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist.

Al ElliottAnd my name is Al. I'm a business owner.

Leanne ElliottAnd we are here to help you simplify the science of work. After this very quick break, we'll get into the 9 personas that determine how people like to work, why hybrid sparks conflict, and how to move from misaligned to half-aligned without losing your mind or your best people.

Al ElliottSee you in a second. The dirty little secret is that most businesses think they know their customers. They have the data, the records, the history, but it's scattered across 3 teams and 4 systems. And in our case, it's about 216,000 spreadsheets, which means nobody can actually use it.

Leanne ElliottWhat you should be doing is using HubSpot, because why? HubSpot connects it all— every interaction, every support ticket, every conversation— into one platform. Every team can work from. So when sales talks to a customer, marketing already knows the full story. And when you know more, you grow more.

Al ElliottNice. Check out hopspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.

Leanne ElliottLet's join Al as he interviews Ina and Alanah.

Ina PurvanovaMy name is Ina Purvanova. I'm a professor at Drake University in our Zimpelman College of Business, and I teach leadership and organizational behavior.

Alanah MitchellYes, and I am Alanah Mitchell. I am also a professor At Drake University, I teach in information systems specifically, so really looking at how we use technology to work together. So in our book, a little bit of background, Ina and I both have been studying this topic of virtual teams and working together through the use of technology for decades, and we had already started working on this project pre-pandemic, and so we were looking to explore how companies were providing space to their employees and the different spaces that they were working in. And we were looking at multiple different companies, but then the pandemic happened and really disrupted our work, but also gave us an opportunity to learn from different types of companies about what they were doing. And so we really looked at 3 different companies with 3 different strategies. So the first company kind of embraced their office space and wanted everybody to come back and be there all the time. The second really just became very happy with that remote work option and really encouraged people to stay there. And then the third kind of mixed the 2 approaches together and came up with a hybrid strategy. So we had 3 companies in those 3 buckets, and then we wanted to look at the alignment of those 3 different companies and how the, the employees that they had working in those different arrangements actually ended up fitting with the strategies that they had chosen.

Ina PurvanovaProbably the easiest way to think about the word alignment is to think about the word fit, how big of a fit you are to your company and vice versa, how well the company fits its employees. So it goes both ways.

Alanah MitchellEven before we finished the book, we had an article in Harvard Business Review that outlined the 9 personas that we found. And that was so fun because as people, as our friends and people that we work with were reading about those 9 personas, they would message us and say, oh, this is what I am, this is me, right? And so they could really see like what their company strategy is, what their preference is, and what that means for them and how they fit into their company. And then our goal is ultimately to share the stories of those personas and then show how we can get them to work together. Because yes, we are not trying to sway anybody one way or another. We recognize that there's differences in what companies' goals would be and what employee preferences would be, and those can even change over time. Some of what we found from the people that we talked to is while they see themselves solidly in this bucket right now at this phase of their career, or this phase of their life, they could see changes happening in the future that might shift them to another bucket. And so that was also interesting. It's not like, it's not a static decision of what we like right now and why.

Ina PurvanovaRight. I mean, we opened the book by saying sameness is out, choice is in. And we think that that is quite frankly, perhaps the biggest gift that the pandemic gave us to understand that there are choices out there and to understand that you can in fact find your alignment if you listened to what you prefer and if if you really ask smart questions of potential future employers.

Al ElliottLet's talk about these personas for a second. Now, don't give us all 9 because then people won't buy the book, but can you tell us, perhaps share a couple of them? And it would be interesting if maybe, Alanah and Ina, if you had different personas.

Ina PurvanovaI would probably say one of the personas that I really loved because I was surprised to find it was what we call the officers. So, those are people who are absolutely gung-ho. I am pro-office. I do not want to work anywhere else. This is where I feel at home. I was in the office even before it was allowed for me to go back to the office during the pandemic. And now that we're all back, I never wanna go back. I will never take a job that is not office-based. I was shocked to hear the number of people that we had in our, uh, participant pool who fell into that bucket because I'm not, um, in that bucket personally. So to me, the officers were a very, very interesting persona.

Alanah MitchellSo opposite of that one, the officers who wanted to be in the office, we would have avatars, right? So avatars are people who want to work remote and they want— they benefit from that and they're happy to be there. And so that kind of is, is the place that they fit in. Um, and they maybe were working there before. They find that to be the, like, the most beneficial use of their skills and knowledge and productivity is just being able to work remotely, um, on their own schedule. And, and they're avatars. So that's how they're kind of seen, right?

Ina PurvanovaRight.

Alanah MitchellIn their technology systems. Ina and I don't talk a lot about what our different personas are, and I definitely think that that shifts with your roles, right? Like, when I was working as a faculty member, probably more of a hybrid preference would be where I am. But then since I've moved into a new role, which is exactly what I was talking about before, since I've moved into a new role, I'm in the office all the time, and that's the expectation that I would have. And luckily I'm able to find value in that. Um, and, and that's kind of hopefully what the book does is help to give people tips for finding value in the different strategies that their companies have chosen to.

Ina PurvanovaAnd to Alanah's point, I mean, being that I am in a faculty role, I am more of that kind of mixed persona. So those we call integrators, so people who kind of like a best of both worlds experience. And I actually would like to think that I'm one of the original integrators because I always have worked in a hybrid modality. I would always come to the office on my teaching days and prefer to work from my home office on my non-teaching days because that's where I could get the quiet time to focus on writing and doing my research. Where back in the day, almost everybody would always come to the office regardless. So I think that I'm one of the OGs.

Al ElliottSo it seems like, Alanah, your persona has changed because of your role, and then Ina, your persona has stayed because of your preference. But are there any people who just perhaps have like a hectic home life where they just want to get away from it and that's what pushes them towards Yes, we especially, we talked to what, this is some of the surprising stuff that we found.

Alanah MitchellFemale executives, surprisingly, we found almost like a significant trend where they prefer to be in the office because it gave them a little bit more separation from what their expectations would be if they were to be in a remote or out or at home kind of position.

Ina PurvanovaYes, and on the opposite of that, by the way, we also found, and that was a very significant trend, that by the way, has been replicated by others since we published the book, that male executives and high-level ranking leaders within organizations actually lean more towards the avatar persona, preferring to work from home. So some gender stereotypes that we would normally have, and that I believe people continue to have, as Alanah said, that's one of the surprising things that we uncover with our research. But again, some of the gender stereotypes would lead people to to imagine that women would be more of that avatar persona and men would be more of that officer persona. And what we find that, especially if you look at higher-ranking male and female leaders, it's really flipped.

Al ElliottYou mentioned hybrid there, which to an outsider who has not got your knowledge or your expertise or looked at your research, they might think, oh, well, that's the best of all worlds. But I could also see a scenario where it's going to create The officers and the avatars, and they're like battling each other. What did you find around the hybrid?

Ina PurvanovaThat is exactly what we found. We actually found that hybrid is both the best of both worlds and potentially could be the worst of both worlds. And the reason for that is precisely as you're pointing out, people who prefer to be in the office full-time are kind of upset as to, well, why are we hybrid? Why can't we just like rip the bandaid and say everybody back to the office all the time? And then people who prefer to be mostly remote are like, well, why are we hybrid? Why don't we just say, let's just stay home all the time? So, you know, those 2 extremes were like, the company's halfway where I want them to be. Why don't they just move fully to where I want them to be? And so there was a lot of back and forth between the officers and the avatars in hybrid settings. Whereas, you know, the integrators in hybrid settings, which are in perfect alignment with their hybrid company, obviously were kind of caught in the middle. And so I think that that's a really important thing for hybrid organizations to realize is that even though the hybrid strategy might seem as the best of both worlds, it actually may create a lot of more rifts between employees that you really, really need to manage very carefully from a human resource perspective.

Al ElliottSo this may not be a question you can answer, but if hybrid isn't the solution, did you come across a perfect solution?

Ina PurvanovaThat's a very interesting question. Um, I think that what I would say is that the perfect solution is not, it's not realistic, right? Like there is no perfection, you know, there would always be somebody who would not be happy, right? But whatever might come close, if you will, to a perfect solution, to me, one of the lessons that, that specifically from the book that we're trying to communicate is Just be clear. Be clear in terms of your expectations. Be, um, clear in terms of how your tactics, your implementation tactics match what you say, because otherwise it's confusing and people don't know what's expected of them. People don't know what the right way to act is. They don't have an ability to adapt because they don't know what they're adapting to. One thing that we did find in follow-up research, by the way, which we had been doing since the book was published is that people are very adaptive, in fact, in that, you know, they have moved, more people have moved closer to alignment with their companies. While we were collecting the data for our book, we found that about 50% of our participants were fully aligned. And then in the follow-up research that we've been doing now, we are actually finding that that level of alignment has risen up to 65 to 70%.

Alanah MitchellWow.

Ina Purvanovaof the workforce. So that's, you know, a good 2/3 of the workforce are now aligned, but that is happening when people know what's expected of them. And so to go back to the idea of what's a perfect solution, the perfect solution is just to know what you want to do and to communicate it very clearly and to make sure that your actions or what we call implementation tactics actually match your work I remember one interview that we did where an employee was in a comp—

Alanah Mitchellworking for a company that wanted everybody in the office, right? And this employee was just every day counting all the tasks that they did and how unnecessary it was that she was physically there. So she just would, you know, I did this, this, and this, and none of them necessitated me being in the office. So I definitely think Yes, there's not a perfect solution. But the thing is that you really have to pay attention to if your employees are feeling like that employee did, um, and feeling like probably that task that they— the task that they were doing could have been done somewhere else, and she really wanted to be doing them somewhere else. So maybe you want to accommodate that, or maybe it's not the right fit, right? But I also, I get nervous if, if every company is picking their strategy and then every company— and then every employee is picking their preference and working for a company with that preference. Have we like negated all diversity of employees and thought that we just have the same similar types of people and the same similar types of organizations? Like, that would be a challenge too. So I think it's just important to recognize there are different choices that can be made. There are different preferences. Those shift over time, which I illustrated in my own example, but you just have to pay attention to it and make sure you're, you know, adjusting as needed.

Ina PurvanovaRight. And that's a really, really important point. I think that there are 2 levels always, right? Like there is the macro level, like what the organization stands for, broadly speaking. Let's say it's a company that believes in being in the office, or it's a company that believes in, you know, freedom and whatnot and wants to be fully remote, whatever. So that's the broader level. But I think to Alanah's point, and that kind of seems contradictory to our book a little bit, although it's not. Is if you are looking for that perfect alignment, does that mean that in an office company, all the employees there would be what we call officers? And what would that do to the diversity of thought and perspectives among the workers in that company? Or conversely, if you're a fully remote company, what we call remote-first, if all of your employees wanna work from home, does that negate that other diversity of perspectives? And so therefore, a second level of alignment needs to come in, and that's a little bit more of that micro level. So within the context of your big picture strategy, how do you still attract and retain some employees that might not be a perfect alignment to your strategy, but maybe they're halfway aligned, maybe they agree and love some aspects of your organization. Maybe your mission, maybe your vision, whatnot. So how do you accommodate those people to where you meet them halfway? So it's always going to be some sort of a macro big picture. Here is my main message. Here is who we are. Here is why we are that. But then looking at the composition of your workforce and making sure that you're making mini micro adjustments as necessary to be sure that you have that diversity of thoughts and opinions. It's always been a blend. Um, it's just that people for some reason fail to recognize it. And I think that the media has actually done a disservice. And honestly, that's probably one of the reasons why Alanah and I wrote this book is because once we got into this research a little bit more, we realized how many myths are out there in the media and they are amplified by very loud voices like the Elon Musks or the Jamie Dimons of the world. Um, and that's just not true. And in research, by the way, we have always looked at virtuality as we call it. on a continuum. So, you know, you can be fully in office, you can be fully online, but most people are kind of a mix of both. So it's always been the case that we've been a mix of both.

Leanne ElliottHere's where leaders get tripped up. It's not job titles, it's tasks. We used to say dress for your day, but now it might be more appropriate to say locate for your day.

Ina PurvanovaI would say based on our interviews, a lot of IT individuals tended to fall more towards a work-from-home preference. And I think that that might be due to the fact that they are very comfortable with technology and a lot of their work can be more legitimately, if you will, done from home. Although I would say that even a lot of the IT individuals that we spoke with would say that some type of in-person interaction from time to time was beneficial. So even though their preference may have been for more fully remote type of, you know, uh, work arrangements, they still would see some value in a hybrid arrangement. A lot of the marketing types of people that we spoke with, um, tended to prefer— a lot of the communications professionals that we spoke with tended to prefer more in-office-based work just because they kind of felt like they feed off of each other.

Alanah MitchellWhat we did observe was tasks, differences in tasks, right? Like if you know, You're going to be heads down in a spreadsheet, and that's what you're going to be doing today. I think that we found people to be fairly flexible on that, right? Like, if I want to be not interrupted, I'm happy to be doing this from my house or from a pod in my office where people can't find me. Like, I think it depended on the task. If you need to be more collaborative or you want to check in with people, then I think then the office was making sense. So, I don't know that we looked at job titles, but tasks, I would say we saw some. some clear separation between where tasks, like task location fits, for example, like where that task makes the most sense for you to do.

Ina PurvanovaYes. One of the leaders that we spoke with, I was very impressed with that comment that she made. She said, it used to be back in the day that we used to tell employees, dress for your day. You know, so like on days where you have meetings, maybe you dress up a little bit. On days where it's more heads-down work, maybe you kind of, you know, dress down a little bit. But now she said, we actually tell people, find your work location based on your day. And so that's what we ended up referring to in our book as task-location fit. So depending on whatever it is on your calendar for the day, it may be more beneficial for you to work from home, or it may be more beneficial for you to come into the office.

Leanne ElliottWe'll be back after this short break where we start to understand whose responsibility it is to decide on whether you work fully remote, Bully in the office, or a mixture of both? Did you know that the UK's number one management podcast— that's us, by the way— and the UK's number one marketing podcast are both on the same podcast network?

Al ElliottWe actually have a lot in common. We both use behavioural science to help people do better at work.

Leanne ElliottAnd we both had to wrangle Rory Sutherland on an episode.

Al ElliottAnd 2 out of 3 of us are devilishly good-looking. You're not going to say which. Phil, host of Nudge, UK's number one marketing podcast. It's brought to you— we need to do this in threes—

Leanne Elliottthe HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Al ElliottSeamless, seamless. Tell us about your latest episode, Phil. Uh, we've just done an episode on fake fandom and how New York indie bands are paying agencies to create fake TikTok videos about how much they like their work. And we talk about the behavioral science behind fandom and how that encourages people to enjoy the music and all of that good stuff, and do some big things about how this affects the world of politics, business, and brands as well.

Leanne ElliottIt is, it's such, it's such a good show. Of course, you'll hear all the stuff you want to hear about how to grow your business by using behavioural science in your marketing. But there's also just some really interesting episodes that'll be right up your street. Personally, I enjoyed Can Balsamic Vinegar Make Beer Taste Better?

Al ElliottIt can. And Are We All Just Status-Seeking Go and listen to Nudge wherever you get your podcasts.

Leanne ElliottBut come back.

Al ElliottYeah, come back. Definitely come back, because Nudge isn't as good as this, so come back. I'll cut that out. Keep that in.

Leanne ElliottWelcome back. Okay, let's get practical. Who actually calls this decision about the work policy? Should it be the leaders setting the rules, or do the teams set the tone? Ina's take might surprise you.

Al ElliottI feel like there's a bit of a chicken and egg situation here because it's like, who decides what the alignment is? Who decides we are all offices or we're going to be mainly office? Is it the organization or does the organization listen to what the team wants? How does, how does someone even navigate that?

Ina PurvanovaWhen we started the research, we kind of found out that organizations were, like I said, already about 50% aligned with their workforce, which actually shocked us. Because that was, we started the research during the pandemic and right as organizations were coming out of the pandemic and were kind of placing their bets, if you will, as to what workplace strategy they were going to adopt, whether office forward, remote first, or hybrid. And they already had a very decent, I would say, level of alignment. I mean, 50% of the workforce being on the same page as you, especially when the pandemic just blew everything apart, if you will. To me, was a very large number of alignment, right? So that leads me to believe that organizations are not just coming up with those strategies out of a hat, but they must be reading the tea leaves at least to a degree and knowing what their workers, or at least a significant majority of the workers, would appreciate and would like. And I know, you know, speaking specifically about the office-forward company that we started, I know for a fact that that was the case for them. I believe the remote-first company that we started also realized that people just loved being remote and absolutely decided to stay there. So some of those strategies, although of course naturally they would come from the company to kind of answer your question, they are coming out of at least an implicit understanding that the leadership team has of what the workforce is. willing to do and where they're at.

Alanah MitchellI think that that's true. I think in every case, we were talking to employees at all levels. And so certainly as an individual, you get to make those choices about if you're working there and how you're doing that. And as a team lead or as a manager, you get to make choices about how you're engaging with your team. And then at the organizational higher level, you get to decide about what that right mix is for you. So I think it's happening at all levels and in different ways.

Al ElliottYou mentioned something before. You said that, I think you said 65% alignment with some of the companies you've found now. As a manager, I'd be asking, is that okay? Is that enough? Do I need to be striving for 100%?

Ina PurvanovaThat's a very good question. So, I would like to point out the 65% alignment right now, in our opinion, is almost kind of just a natural alignment that happened where people after, you know, coming out of the pandemic, their organizations kind of Initially being a little bit lukewarm about what they expected people to do. And then over the next several years after, you know, the world opened up after a lockdown, organizations becoming a little bit more clear in what they expected. So some of that alignment that we saw moving from 50% roughly to 65% roughly on average is kind of just that natural momentum, if you will. And now I think that what we're seeing in the data now is that things have stalled, that people are pretty set in their preferences, and that organizations are becoming pretty set in what they want to do as far as their workplace strategy. And so to answer your question, no, 65% is not okay. We can't just rely on this natural momentum that was happening, natural alignment that was happening as people were figuring out what's expected of me, what do I actually like, what works for my life? I think that now is really the time to get on board with this, you know, alignment idea and really figure out how I can improve those numbers. Because let's think about what that means, right? I mean, if you are half aligned, maybe it's kind of okay-ish, but if you're fully misaligned, then that hits your engagement levels. That hits your commitment to your organization, and eventually those things actually show up in your performance. And so you begin to be present versus to be engaged at work. So alignment is really, really important, and you can't just say, okay, it's 5 and a half years after the pandemic now. We've decided we are, you know, we are gonna pursue this strategy and that's that. You know, people just need to adapt. No. As a leader, as an organization, it is your role to help people adapt.

Alanah MitchellI wouldn't think that 100% alignment is where we need to be. So, if we have about 65% who are just perfect alignment, full alignment with the strategy that your company has chosen, that's great. Some percent of that is also gonna be half aligned, right? Like maybe you are requiring everybody to work remote. You have some percent that likes hybrid. And they like the remote, but they also like some time in the office, right? So they're half aligned. But then you also have some percent that wants to be in the office all the time. And so they're misaligned. They're not really matching up with what you're doing. I don't know that you need to pay all of your time and attention on that population that isn't matched up with what you're doing, but if you could at least nudge them to value the hybrid, Mm-hmm. then they're only half aligned rather than fully misaligned, right? That's the part. The example that I mentioned earlier where that woman was counting every task she did in theory because she had to be in the office to do them, if she would've maybe just been given a flexible assignment where she had a hybrid role versus an in-office role, she might've been able to find some happiness there. She ultimately ended up leaving that company because she just was too upset about where she was working. But if she could've had some flexibility, I suspect that would've been a half-aligned picture. situation and she would've been a little bit more happier.

Ina PurvanovaYes. And that's a really, really super important point. So the balance of, you know, the 65%, so the 35%, that is a combination of half aligned and misaligned, and maybe half aligned is not that bad, you know? And so really, how do you perhaps move the misaligned to maybe half alignment versus to alignment? One thing that we have been finding out is that people are flexible, but they're flexible to a degree. And what we mean by that is, They wouldn't jump over, um, an alignment point. They would jump to the next alignment point. So if you are misaligned, you would more likely jump to being half aligned versus jump all the way to being fully aligned. And so, um, again, from an HR perspective, how do you, A, ensure that you know who is where in terms of their alignment? Because I actually challenge that you know, a lot of organizations don't know their specific mix. So how do you find out the mix within your company? And B, how do you then focus your efforts not necessarily on getting everybody on board, which we also talked about from a diversity perspective is probably not a very good thing, but how do you make sure that people are at least a little bit closer? So maybe half aligned to your company. By the way, if you think about it in the literature, And I know we don't wanna get too technical in, in, in kind of academic here, but there is such a thing as person-organization fit theory in, in, in organizational behavior and management literature. And one thing that we know is that when you, you know, the reason whether you feel that you fit to your organization or not is very much multifaceted. So there are many different reasons for why you may feel a fit or a misfit to your company. In our language, that would be a alignment or misalignment. And so if you think about alignment as just one facet of the broader person-organization fit, what are some other facets that you can offer to employees to kind of still make sure that they feel like they belong to your company? So maybe they're halfway in agreement with you as far as the work location or the work modality, what we call workplace alignment. But maybe they're in full alignment or in full agreement with you as an organization on other aspects. Like, you know, maybe they like their salary, maybe they like their boss, maybe they like their team members. So how do you make sure that you supplement some other kind of aspects of, of their overall work experience so that though they're in half alignment in terms of workplace location preferences, they're in full alignment on other aspects of person-organization fit so that you can have different people on board to, again, promote that diversity of thoughts and opinions within your workforce.

Al ElliottWhat about those few people, hopefully few people, who are just not at all aligned with your work strategy there?

Alanah MitchellWell, I mean, the example I shared, we did, they did lose that person, right? She was unhappy and ultimately went somewhere else. And there's probably other examples if I think about some of the people that we talked to who were similar. Certainly you wouldn't want policies to rid you of employees that really were valuable and, and creating a real meaning for your company.

Ina PurvanovaPersonally, in my opinion, misalignment is not good for the company and it's not good for you. And so if you hate your, uh, work modality fit, so you, let's say you prefer to work from home and the company's an office-based company, so you're in perfect misalignment. Unless there is something else that is really, really, really so wonderful and amazing about this company that you love it on so many other levels and you can put up with that, which by the way, I am very hard pressed to think of an example from our research where that was the case. I would say that it's in your best benefit, and we actually talk about that in the book. We have a whole chapter dedicated to what if you're misaligned, you know, and, and one of the things that we say is if you can't Get yourself to at least half alignment, then get out. And I mean, that's the, that's the beauty of today's workplace. That's the beauty of this sameness is out and choices in idea of a, of a workplace. There are options out there. And yes, of course, the job market right now is not looking very hot, but hopefully that changes. And, and, and the good thing again is that there are opportunities for you. There are companies that you can find that they're a better fit.

Alanah MitchellYeah.

Ina Purvanovaor a better alignment with your work location preferences. So it's, it's just not psychologically healthy for people to keep themselves in a situation that makes them miserable, quite frankly.

Alanah MitchellI know there were specific examples of employees that we talked to that worked for a company that required you to be in the office, and they were working remotely, um, because they were geographically in a different place than those offices were. And I think as a technology researcher, of course, I think that that's wonderful. I value The ability for people to live anywhere in the world and still contribute to that company. They aren't going to fit in with what the workplace strategy is because they can't physically be there. They don't live in a close enough region to be able to make that happen. Maybe they come in quarterly, maybe they do something else, but it does limit their ability to grow in that organization, which does impact someone's overall happiness. But if that's the only way you can get their expertise and that's the only way they can contribute, then You're gonna have to figure out how to make that work or not.

Al ElliottYou're saying they've got 65% alignment. How do you actually measure that? What are you doing to get to that number?

Ina PurvanovaSo, that's a great question. We actually have developed a scale, a survey that measures people's workplace preferences. And so, based on that survey, we know if your preference more leans towards a work-from-office or more hybrid kind of mix, or your preference is more towards remote work. And then it's simply a matter of matching. So if you know your work preference, well, what is the strategy of your company? So if, if your company wants you to be in the office and your personal workplace preference is to be in the office, then that's how you get to alignment. So those are the aligned people. Or conversely, if your company is a remote-first company and your preference is to work mostly remote, Well, that's also alignment, you know, on that other end of the spectrum. So basically alignment is like the two— to calculate it, it's a 2-step process. First, measure your employees so that you find out what their personal preference is, and then simply match that against the strategy of your company. And so when you do that, you would realize that regardless of what the strategy of your company is, whether it's office, whether it's hybrid, whether it's remote, In any one of those 3 situations, you are likely to have at least 3 buckets or 3 personas, as we call them, of employees. Some of them will be an aligned persona, some of them would be a half-aligned persona, and some of them would be a misaligned persona. And by the way, in the hybrid case, it gets really interesting because there's obviously aligned personas. So those are people who prefer to work hybrid and their company's hybrid. But in hybrid companies, there is 2 half-aligned personas and there is no misaligned persona, right? Because if you are a remote-prefering employee working for a hybrid company, well, you're kind of halfway there. And conversely, if you're an office-prefering employee working for a hybrid company, then you're also halfway there. So that's kind of that dilemma that we talked about earlier with hybrid is that Um, there is a core group of aligned people, and then there are 2 opposing group of groups of half-aligned people, which may seem like, oh, wonderful. In hybrid, I do not have anybody who is fully misaligned. But actually, the fact that you have 2 half-aligned buckets or personas makes things very interesting.

Alanah MitchellIn the book, we have a matrix that kind of shows you and illustrates this, um, visually. So you could see, um, all of our HR audience members will love. It's a little 9-box, so you can see kind of where people are fitting in there. So, that's, that's a helpful tool that we have.

Al ElliottI don't know whether you can answer this question here, but if the pandemic hadn't have happened, do you think we still would be going towards hybrid and remote?

Alanah MitchellI love that question. One of the companies that I was working with during the pandemic was a grocery store. And what, what they told me was that what the pandemic did for online grocery ordering was it moved them ahead 5 years in projections of where they would have been. And I feel the same way about the hybrid or in remote. We probably would've always gotten there, but it just happened so much faster because of the pandemic.

Ina PurvanovaEven leaders in the, um, office-forward, as we call it, company absolutely recognize that remote work is here to stay. So I think it's kind of a myth that organizations who are choosing to go back to the office are just kind of going back in time. They are modernizing their work processes as well. So yes, the pandemic moved us forward, but everybody was moving in that direction already.

Alanah MitchellAnd the other thing I will add there is we've been working remotely for decades. There's research all the way back to the 1980s where they were studying women who were working from home and having kind of remote support of the jobs that they were doing. So, we've been doing it a long time. It's just that rapid movement and rapid mass adoption that was kind of unprecedented.

Ina PurvanovaOne very, very interesting thing historically, if you think about it, I read somewhere, and that just just blew my mind. If you really think about it, even the Roman Empire was a virtual empire, right? Because you kind of had to manage your colonies virtually. And of course, technology back then was a horse riding through, you know, space so that you can deliver a letter from the emperor to the, you know, administrator of the Egyptian province, if you will. But that's kind of a way of virtual working. So we've always been virtual, I suppose. It's just that now technology is making it way easier than riding a horse through Europe.

Al ElliottYou talk then about younger people. So let's imagine someone who's 24 years old. They started, they ended work when they were 18, which would be 2020, give or take. 50% of their, of their work life has been sort of affected by this pandemic. Does that mean that they are potentially skewed one way or the other, or is there no difference?

Ina PurvanovaA lot of the younger people that we spoke with, and again, that is something that had been replicated in other research that had been published or discussed in the media too, younger people actually do lean towards an office preference. And that may be because of their experience in the pandemic where they felt just, you know, removed from the world, if you will. And we also know a lot of mental health issues and all of that occurred probably because of that isolation. But I think younger people very much realize that they need the mentoring, they need the support. They don't really know what work is about. And how do you learn what work is about if you're just sitting in front of a computer? Some of our most, almost heartbreaking, I would say, interviews were with young people who had to work from home because let's say their organization was working from home. You know, it was a work-from-home company. They felt lonely. One of them talked about being depressed. One of them talked about feeling like a soulless husk.

Alanah MitchellYeah.

Ina PurvanovaI mean, who says that I'm a soulless husk, you know? And so I think the majority of young people definitely prefer to be in an office at least some of the time, if not all of the time. But to Alanah's point too, they also had great awareness that at some point in time when I learned the ropes, when I learned my job, when I formed, you know, networks and relationships within the company, And when I start having other life demands, for example, maybe I get married, maybe I have children down the road, maybe my preferences would change. So they were not blind to the fact that although they preferred the office now, they could potentially want a hybrid or maybe a fully remote work situation down the road in their, as their life develops.

Leanne ElliottIt turns out that alignment isn't fixed over an entire career. As life changes, preferences can sometimes change. Perhaps at the beginning of your career you have childcare duties, so hybrid working is perfect. Then mid-career, you're building your professional network, so mainly office-based is much more advantageous. Then in your late career, you value freedom, maybe even creating a home office so you can work next to a lake. Of course, this complicates things a little, but it does show that there is no one-fits-all policy. You need to be somewhat flexible.

Ina PurvanovaWe came across many stories where people reflected on the fact that they might change their preference. So our interviews were, they happened at one point in time, right? So we didn't follow up with people at multiple points in time to understand exactly whether they may have changed or not. But we certainly had a lot of people reflecting on the fact that I will perhaps change when my life situation changes. So a lot of moms, for example, would say, currently I lean towards preferring working from home or at least hybrid, just because that gives me more flexibility with balancing motherhood and, you know, employment. But I also know that when my kids are done with all these crazy activities that we all have to sign up our kids for, for some reason, you know, I know that I will have a lot more free time and I would actually want to be more in the office so that I can reconnect with my coworkers a little bit better and get more plugged in again. So people were reflecting on potential changes down the road. I will say that the follow-up study that we've, we conducted, we did conduct that study with the same participants that we had interviewed. I don't necessarily know that enough time had passed, you know, cuz it was 2 years later for actual life changes to have occurred, but people certainly did report switching preferences more based on just the personal realization of what really works for them relative to where their employer is. So that's some of that natural realignment that occurred that I talked about earlier, um, where people, you know, saw some benefits that they previously didn't perhaps of their employer's chosen strategy and kind of got on board.

Alanah MitchellIn fact, one guy that we talked to, whole career in the office and then decided to move to a lake. So now in his, in the kind of like final chapter of his career, he's working on a lake and he's looking at the water every day and sitting at his desk and he's just loving that life. He still gets to mentor new employees and he does all of that remotely. But that is just another example where, where, yes, you looked back and think like, I can accept this different way of doing things.

Ina PurvanovaAnd I think that goes again to the heart of our story, which is alignment is not static. It's a very, very developmental, very dynamic, very much of a life process. And again, understanding that sameness is out and choice is in is extremely, extremely empowering because that literally tells you, you just have to stay self-aware. You have to kind of listen to your own self. You know, you know how your life is changing, how your preferences are changing. And there are choices out there. So one of the things that I think we both hope, and we end the book on that, is we hope that organizations continue to be as diverse as their own employees in terms of the strategies that they offer. We certainly don't wanna see a workplace where it's kind of how pre-COVID the office reigned supreme. We don't wanna see that. We want to continue to see options out there. We want to continue to have companies decide that being in the office is best for them. And we wanna continue to see companies decide that, you know what, hybrid is actually best for us. And we wanna see how, you know, some companies continue to decide that being remote is best for them because that's what gives choices to people and allows people to find alignment for themselves as they move through their life and through their career.

Leanne ElliottHiring is where misalignment sneaks in. And the fix is actually pretty simple. Stop selling the fantasy and just describe the day.

Ina PurvanovaI think as far as recruitment goes, I think a lot of organizations are leaving a lot on the table, but not actually explaining exactly what people are going to find themselves in should they join the organization. I think, for example, one of the attractive points of remote-first is, hey, I get to work from home. Ooh, that's wonderful. And that's wonderful. I mean, like I said, I work from home half of my week and I love that, right? However, oftentimes people are not told exactly what that experience would be like. For some individuals, working from home is perfectly fine, but many individuals may find themselves lonely and isolated. And so you are not explaining that to potential recruits as an organization, you are risking eventually hiring people who would be misaligned. Same thing with office forward, you know, like office forward companies oftentimes you know, almost shy away from really communicating how important it is for employees to be in the office, but then they have that expectation that employees are in the office. So in HR, we have this term that's called realistic job preview. And I think that organizations absolutely need to incorporate very detailed and honest information about, hey, this is what your work experience will be. Should you join this company so that they can kind of ensure that people at least have an awareness of exactly what's going to happen when they become a member of a certain employer?

Alanah MitchellWe do talk about, and we have some HR tips in our book and some recruitment tips in our book that I think are helpful. Um, if I think about some specific examples, we talked to some interns during our interviews too, so they got to say like, Wow, I worked remote and I don't feel like I knew anything or anyone, or wow, I had to go to the office all the time and there was, you know, nobody there, or something like that. So there were all kinds of different feelings about that. Certainly, we shared that female executives do like to be in the office and that male executives have a slight preference towards remote. The junior level kind younger, newer employees, they really do value and benefit from that time in the office, and maybe that's just part of the training piece that needs to happen, but I also think we had some new employees that went to go work fully remote and they were fine, so—

Ina PurvanovaMm-hmm.

Alanah MitchellIt's just going to vary, but it is an important part of the job and an important piece of understanding, like, Right now, I'm a new hire and I don't really know what I'm doing or who I'm talking to. And so, I find a lot of value from being in the office regularly, and maybe that's a rotation that I do until eventually I reach a level where I can have some more flexibility. So, I think that that piece is important.

Al ElliottInteresting. So, let's talk about the book. So, can you tell us who should read it and perhaps who shouldn't read it?

Alanah MitchellYeah, I think that there's lots of benefits from reading the stories in our book. We had interviews with with just 89 different individuals, and they represent employees, leaders, organizational decision makers, so all different levels. And what I think is most beneficial from hearing those stories is everybody kind of understands their own— hopefully is understanding of their own preferences, and then maybe really kind of having thoughts about what other people are choosing. And so this really shares kind of behind the curtain with what other people's choices might be and maybe helps you to have a little bit more understanding for why they choose that preference or why they prefer to work in the office every day or why they prefer to have a remote position and helps you kind of see how you can work together with them. So I think there's value for just individual employees who are in an office working with other office employees who may or may not be in the office. I also think that there's value from an HR perspective just to understand how you can bring those employees together. And then the managers, team leaders, kind of organizational decision makers, Um, can benefit from it too because they understand, you know, what goes, what happens when you make such a decision about your workplace strategy and what that does, maybe alienates or creates challenges for some who don't have the same preference.

Ina PurvanovaOur goal was not to convince people either way. Our goal was actually to open people's minds and eyes about the diversity that exists out there. So one thing that we talk about in the book is we talk about persona, as we call it, persona diversity. how many different types of preferences are out there, how many different combinations of what your company wants you to do versus what you want to do. We actually discovered 9 different personas. So workplaces are very diverse in terms of the alignment preferences of their employees. And we really wanted people to know that. And as Alanah mentioned, it's not just leaders who we wanted to know that. We wanted coworkers to know that because one of the things that we saw is that oftentimes people didn't appreciate the fact that their own coworkers have a different preference or fall within a different persona type. And sometimes it was almost therapeutic, um, during our interviews. A lot of individuals, as they were talking about their own work experiences and the work experiences of their team members, they would literally have aha moments during the interview where they would realize, hearing themselves talk about these issues, that, you know what, I have this preference, but so many other people have a different preference. So it was very eye-opening for our own interviewees to realize that people do in fact fall under or alongside a very wide continuum of alignment preferences. And that's again, one of the main goals of the book is to open people's minds to that diversity.

Al ElliottIf people want to follow you, follow your work, buy the book, where's the best place for them Go to Amazon, buy the book.

Alanah MitchellWe have a website too. It's thenewworkplacebook.com, so you can find, find us there too.

Leanne ElliottWell, there you have it. Hybrid might win by default, but only if leaders are clear about the why and honest about the trade-offs. That's how you keep culture from turning to cardboard.

Al ElliottSo hybrid is not the solution, but it kind of is. The key is to try and allow flexibility, allowing your team to decide where they can do their best work, but at the same time, try to ensure that people get face time when they actually need it.

Leanne ElliottBefore we wrap up, Al asked Alanah and Ina their predictions for work in 25 years' time. Where is all this heading? I think you'll be able to guess their response.

Al Elliott2050. Would you expect to see workplaces about the same as now? Very different? Assuming we're not all like batteries for AI robots, like in The Matrix.

Ina PurvanovaThat's what I was thinking is I don't know if, if the workplace would look the same because of those robots that might be coming in. I don't know. I feel like the workplace would move, could continue to, to move towards more flexibility just because technologies is empowering and enabling that. I think that there is a lot of realizations right now that being in each other's presence, at least from time to time, is also really important. So personally, to me, if I were to put a wager on what workplace strategy might be most, you know, prevalent, if you will, in 2050, I would probably say hybrid.

Alanah MitchellYeah, I mean, I love this question. I love to think ahead to the future of what it might look like. Of course, the technology piece plays into this a little bit, but we are social beings and we do desire relationships and connectivity. And so I do think at some point, That time spent together in a room is probably going to be valuable, but maybe you're getting those connections filled somewhere else. Maybe it doesn't have you know a lot of our interviews we asked we asked this kind of question like what would you hope for the future of work? And people really really did talk about purpose and meaning and like finding something that fills their cup and gives them gives them value. in their days. And so I do think that that will continue to be important. I think people do want to do something that is meaningful to them. And so what that looks like, I guess we'll have to see. But I think it involves some combination, right? So hybrid is probably a good answer if you're, if you're betting.