Senior Partner Organisational Strategy
Future of Work
Powering Performance in Australia’s Hybrid Workplaces
The hybrid workplace evolution is underway, and managing the blurring boundaries between work and life requires new rules of engagement.
April 14, 2025
Make the Hybrid Evolution Work for You
Is hybrid work a right or a privilege? That’s the question many Australian employers are grappling with. The truth is, it’s probably both.
Employers know hybrid or flexible work policies are now a make-or-break part of the employee value propositionpackage. Our data backs that up: in the latest survey of over 2,000 Australian workers, one in two say they’re thinking about leaving or actively applying for a new job. After poor pay and job security, the reason they’re most likely to leave is their employer’s lack of respect for personal priorities outside of work (for 79%)—closely followed by a lack of flexible work hours (76%).
But flexible working from home policies are challenging traditional conventions around how we connect at work, how we learn and develop, and how we switch off at the end of the day.
So how are Australian employers managing this hybrid tension?
It Takes More Than Mandates
Adam Meadows, Organisational Strategy Leader at Korn Ferry, says he’s seeing a mixed approach to ‘return to office’ policies. Some are mandating two days a week in the office, some require three.
However, while more than one in two of the Australian workers we surveyed said they’d prefer a hybrid blend of working from home and office, only 27% have that option. And just 18% say they want to work full-time in the office.
Some employers raise an economic case for return to office mandates, which largely comes down to getting a return on investment on their capital city head office footprints. Others may also question productivity at home, but as Meadows observes, that says more about management structures than hybrid work policies.
“My feeling is if we've got a productivity challenge, it's probably more cultural than structural—and we might need to change the way we manage performance. After all, the world economy ran in a largely hybrid work environment during COVID. So what’s changed?”
On the other hand, there’s the case for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Australia now has record employment participation—in part, because more working parents and pre-retirees have the opportunity to work from home as well as the office.
And it’s not just working mothers: our data suggests 65% of Australian men believe the ability to work flexibly and from wherever they want is critical to their work-life balance, compared with 61% of women.
If mandates aren’t the answer, what is? Meadows says it’s not “passive bribery” measures like free meals in the office fridge. A more sustainable approach starts with the organisational culture, and measures the right indicators for performance.
“Does working a 7.25 hour day in the office tick a productivity box? Or is it more about engagement and output? I haven’t seen an economist yet create the perfect productivity model for a hybrid work world,” he says.
Connectivity Works Both Ways
A hybrid work culture is a two-way obligation. It’s not just on the employer to provide flexibility—people still need to show how they’re adding value.
While 70% of Australian workers told us connection with colleagues is one of the most important things about their job, only 18% want to work in the office full-time. They don’t want to be forced into the office to make that connection physically. However, that is the quickest way to find common ground—especially across different generations.
Good leaders want to connect with their people, and they know that’s where productivity and performance comes from. Meadows gives the example of a leader who told him he’s frustrated by employee engagement survey responses, saying they don’t feel connected to leadership.
“Yet that leader is in the office every day. His people are not. And when they’re on Teams meetings, their cameras are turned off and they’re muted.”
Getting the Disconnect Balance Right
Hybrid work arrangements can often blur the lines between work and personal life, leading to increased pressure to be available outside of work hours. 39% of Australian workers say they still have to answer urgent emails or calls after work hours.
However, employees now have a legal right to refuse work-related communication outside agreed working hours under Australia’s Right to disconnect Fair Work Act.
Meadows says employers are concerned with whether their people are truly switching off, because they have less visibility over when work is being done.
“If you have a full hybrid, full flex work model, does the right to disconnect really work? When are your people on or off the clock?”
He says it’s important to set parameters—whether that’s making it explicitly clear you won’t expect a response if a message is sent outside working hours, or being transparent about travel commitments or multinational time zone meetings during the recruitment process.
Intentional Learning and Development
While good employers have always respected personal priorities outside work, there is potential to miss opportunities to learn in a hybrid workplace.
“Some leaders are so afraid of imposing outside work hours, they just take care of urgent tasks themselves. And that’s a missed learning opportunity,” notes Meadows.
The same applies in reverse, with missed upward coaching opportunities for leaders.
“The new generations entering the workforce bring a different mindset, and are more comfortable with a remote working and learning experience. Established leaders could learn from those mindsets and qualities,” he observes.
As AI takes over a greater volume of manual work, it will become increasingly important for younger staff to develop communication and negotiation skills. And these are best shared by watching how a more experienced leader operates.
“You can’t acquire emotional intelligence through a screen,” observes Meadows. “So if you create physical opportunities to learn or come together as an organisation, be very clear that they are non-negotiable.”
On-premise learning opportunities can also build trust between colleagues, and reinforce the values of your culture.
The New Hybrid Work Model
Fitting a new work order into an old work environment is like jamming a square peg into a round hole. Leaders will need to make intentional adjustments to their culture as well as hybrid work policies.
“It’s up to us to make it easy for everyone,” says Meadows. And he believes it will be worth it. “If you're flexible, you'll get more productivity and more discretionary effort from your people.”
Find out what your people really want from a hybrid workplace in Korn Ferry’s Workforce 2025 report.
Key takeaways
- Why work from home policies are critical to talent retention
- How Australia’s employers are managing the flexibility working policy tension
- How to ensure learning opportunities aren’t missed in a hybrid work model
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