Flexible but fragmented? The new logic of hybrid working environments

Flexibility is widely regarded as one of the key resources of modern knowledge work. In the debate around working from home, however, it is often overlooked that flexible working models have not only a spatial dimension but also a temporal one. This means that we not only work in different locations, but increasingly at different times as well (Wessels et al., 2019).

Many of these patterns arise from autonomous decisions made by employees. Research on temporal and spatial flexibility shows that employees benefit when they have a say in when and where they work. At the same time, this newly gained freedom presents challenges for many: boundaries between work and leisure blur, work locations overlap, and clear limits are lost. Studies also suggest that employees often plan their work locations less rationally than assumed. Decisions tend to be guided by personal routines, team structures or situational preferences rather than by a systematic analysis of the task at hand (Kurzmann et al., 2025). Too much freedom of choice can lead to additional strain: constant availability, blurred boundaries, or the feeling of having to be present in several places at once. This increases the pressure to think more carefully about which environment truly supports the task at hand and which conditions organisations should provide to make such decisions easier.

At the same time, location-independent working opens up new opportunities. Organisations can build global teams and significantly expand their recruitment pool. However, this also creates new coordination and integration challenges – for example, when a company enables all employees to work from any location but must simultaneously establish shared time windows, communication standards or hybrid meeting rules so that distributed teams can collaborate effectively despite a high degree of individual flexibility.

With the rise of flexible working models, the role of the office is changing fundamentally. When employees regularly change their place of work, they actively interpret and shape spaces – a process that reflects a dynamic relationship between space and its users in terms of spatial agency (Stephenson, 2020). Spaces are perceived differently (Lefebvre, 1991), and these perceptions directly influence decisions about where work takes place.

Current reports show clear patterns: many employees prefer to work from home when they need to concentrate, while they come to the office for exchange, collaboration and social interaction. As a result, the office is increasingly becoming a meeting place, a social hub or a space for teamwork and creative processes. Offices that foster creativity are those that deliberately enable social interaction, spontaneous encounters and knowledge exchange, while also offering flexible, well-equipped spaces for focused work, participation and a sense of belonging (Lucius and Dambert, 2024).

The need for opportunities for concentrated work in the office therefore remains. The task, then, is to create spaces that can do both: facilitate encounters and collaboration while also offering places for retreat, focus and quiet work.

Organisations are employing various strategies to respond to the new hybrid working reality and adapt their spaces accordingly:

• Anchor days, instead of ‘I come to the office... and no one is there’
  Fixed in-office days ensure that teams can reliably meet on site. Shared lunches, short updates or after-work formats create routines, strengthen culture and prevent office time from becoming purely online meeting time.
• Activity-based working with modular spaces, instead of the classic ‘corridor of closed doors’
  Rather than traditional cellular offices, many organisations are opting for flexible, modular workspaces. This allows employees to choose the right workspace for each task and enables teams to adapt spaces as workflows or needs change.
• New collaborative spaces, instead of ‘the coffee kitchen where you’d rather not linger too long’
  High-quality meeting areas, lounges and co-working spaces replace cramped, perhaps even enclosed coffee kitchens and encourage spontaneous interaction and cross-team exchange, making the office more appealing.
• Experimental phases instead of ‘We’re doing everything at once and making it colourful and open’
  Many organisations initially test different spatial layouts and gradually develop suitable workspace strategies based on usage data and feedback. For example, a department or floor may receive a prototype redesign with temporary furniture, which is then adapted or rolled out further depending on perceived success.

These examples clearly show that spatial design is increasingly being used as a strategic tool to strengthen hybrid collaboration, foster cultural cohesion and noticeably improve the quality of shared time in the office. What organisations should not be guided by, however, are return-to-office mandates. Recent research is unequivocal: mandatory returns to the office do not lead to higher performance indicators or better financial outcomes. Instead, satisfaction declines, while emotional exhaustion and turnover risks increase (Ding and Ma, 2024; Kunze and Hampel, 2025). Rather than coercion, what is needed are spaces people enjoy using and work environments that create genuine reasons to come together.

Hybrid working is here to stay. For flexibility to be productive, organisations need spaces that provide orientation, enable identification and strengthen collaboration. Digital tools such as booking systems or utilisation analyses can help, but social space remains crucial: interactions create a sense of belonging, provide structure and make collaboration tangible.

The next article in the Spatial Thinkers series explores how organisations are dealing with this new flexibility, the opportunities and risks associated with office consolidation and desk-sharing concepts, and why good spatial planning today needs one thing above all else: clear orientation despite freedom.