Having worked at Oda, Kron, and later Storebrand (they acquired Kron), I’ve seen hybrid work from many angles. Each of these companies leaned into hybrid setups, and my take? They don’t work. Hybrid isn’t inherently bad, but unless you put the required effort and thoughtfulness into it, it’s a recipe for mediocrity. The promise of flexibility and balance often ends up compromising the best parts of remote and in-office work, leaving everyone frustrated.
The herd mentality
Many companies embrace hybrid because it’s the trendy thing to do. Leaders talk about “modern workplaces” and “valuing flexibility” in their LinkedIn posts, but they don’t put in the work to understand what hybrid really entails. They’re following the herd. Simply saying “work from home” isn’t enough. Hybrid demands adapting to fundamentals like more written communication and fewer meetings, along with rethinking collaboration entirely.
This isn’t just about hybrid. I’ve seen the same mindset with companies switching to English as their workplace language to attract a broader talent pool—often without much thought or consideration. Sure, it sounds progressive, but if that’s your goal, you need to take it all the way: open up hiring globally and embrace the consequences of such a shift. At the same time, be mindful of what you’re leaving behind—natural collaboration between people who share a mother tongue, cultural nuances that foster creativity, and the ease of expressing complex ideas without the barrier of translation.
So, to be clear, this blog post isn’t just about hybrid work or office cultures where everyone speaks a second language. Fundamentally, it’s a call for leaders to think critically, put in the effort, and be explicit about the compromises they’re making in designing their culture.
Why hybrid often sucks
Here’s the thing about hybrid: it tries to balance two fundamentally different modes of working but rarely achieves either effectively. Relationships erode, distractions multiply, and the system often fails to support both in-office and remote workers equally. From my experience, these are the biggest pitfalls:
Hybrid office open floor plans miss all marks: At Apple, Steve Jobs gave employees their own private offices for focus while ensuring they crossed paths by placing bathrooms and cafés in a central atrium. This deliberate design fostered both creativity and connection. Hybrid setups? They miss both marks. Offices aren’t optimized for deep work, and the connection feels forced and fragmented.
Everyone hates digital meetings: Virtual meetings are terrible compared to real ones. They lack energy, immediacy, and nuance. Hybrid setups often make this worse by leaving remote participants as an afterthought. And let’s face it: most hybrid proponents prefer endless meetings over clear, written communication—a disaster in the making, since most people are bad at writing.
Office space overload: Hybrid demands everything: quiet zones, soundproof booths for calls, brainstorming spaces, and drop-in desks. It’s chaotic and expensive, often exposing the fact that the office was never designed to handle this complexity.
Performance disparities: In any workplace, performance isn’t evenly distributed. Hybrid work makes it easy for underperformers to misuse the freedom—taking advantage of flexibility to do less—while top performers pick up the slack, often juggling additional responsibilities to keep things running smoothly.
Relationships erode: In hybrid setups, fewer people are in the office simultaneously, which weakens relationships. Shared rituals—like informal check-ins, team lunches, or casual chats—disappear. Remote-first companies design around these challenges with structured check-ins and intentional team-building, but hybrid setups often fail to address them.
It’s difficult for new joiners: fewer in-person interactions mean less organic mentorship, slower onboarding, and a tougher time building relationships. In remote-first setups, these gaps are filled intentionally with structured mentorship and clear documentation, but hybrid companies rarely address this, leaving new hires to navigate a disjointed system on their own.
Working from home is full of distractions: Fully remote companies invest in dedicated setups for focus—like home offices or shared workspaces. In hybrid setups, however, work-from-home often means sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by kids, a partner on a call, or frequent interruptions like deliveries. The result? A fragmented, unproductive experience that’s far from ideal.
A note for established companies
For companies with established cultures, switching models is a challenge. Most Oslo-based companies, including the ones I worked for, are heavily in-office—especially at the management level—while adopting vague work-from-home policies. Transitioning to fully remote would require a massive cultural and structural overhaul. Doubling down on 100% in-office work, however, is a shorter, more achievable path that aligns better with existing structures.
It’s not all black and white. Even if you choose an in-office culture, there’s plenty to learn from the remote working model. Less and shorter meetings, more scalable written communication, and a focus on deep, concentrated work aren’t just for remote companies—they’re essential practices for any organization that values efficiency and clarity.
Don’t compromise on how you work effectively
The way a company works is its backbone. It’s not something you can afford to get wrong. Yet too many leaders treat it like a reversible decision, casually experimenting with hybrid as if the stakes aren’t high. That’s a mistake.
Look at companies that succeed. Remote-first giants like GitLab thrive because they’ve gone all-in on asynchronous communication, global hiring, and structured collaboration. Early Apple thrived because they committed to the power of physical proximity. Both approaches required bold, deliberate leadership.
Hybrid, on the other hand, often feels like a hedge—an attempt to avoid making hard decisions. If you’re going to go hybrid, you need to be explicit about what you’re compromising and ensure the trade-offs make sense. Most importantly, you need to design hybrid for success, not mediocrity.
Whatever you choose, be deliberate
The debate about remote, hybrid, or in-office setups is often a distraction. The real question is whether leaders are deliberate about how their companies work. Fully remote and fully in-office setups succeed because they demand clear, intentional design. Hybrid, on the other hand, often feels like a hedge—hesitant leadership avoiding hard decisions. If you’re going hybrid, make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons—not because it’s what everyone else is doing. Be brutally honest about what hybrid demands and whether you’re prepared to make it work. Without that intentionality, no amount of flexibility will save you.