Has hybrid working created stronger individuals but weaker teams?

Hybrid working has transformed the way organisations operate.

What began as a necessity for many organisations has become a permanent feature of working life. For many employees, the benefits are clear. Greater flexibility, improved work-life balance and the opportunity to work with fewer interruptions have enabled people to organise work in ways that suit both their role and their personal circumstances.

Yet whilst hybrid working appears to be working well for many individuals, Belbin's latest research suggests the picture is more complex at team level.

Many organisations have made significant progress in supporting individual effectiveness and engagement. Building and maintaining strong, connected teams appears to be more difficult.

Productivity is high, but team engagement remains a challenge

Much of the discussion around hybrid working has centred on productivity. Early concerns that remote and hybrid employees would struggle to remain effective have largely subsided.

Our research found that most respondents considered themselves effective in their role regardless of where they were working. Individual engagement has also recovered considerably compared with findings from earlier studies undertaken during the pandemic.

However, a different picture emerged when we looked at engagement from a team perspective.

Whilst many respondents reported being engaged with their work in both contexts, significantly fewer felt equally engaged with their team.

Almost half reported stronger team engagement when working alongside colleagues in person.

This distinction is important. Individual effectiveness and team effectiveness are closely related, but they are not the same thing. An organisation may have highly productive individuals whilst still struggling with cohesion, alignment and collaboration across teams.

Why connection remains difficult

One of the strongest themes to emerge from the research was the difference between completing work and feeling connected.
Many aspects of individual performance can be supported through hybrid working. Focused work, analysis, planning and independent problem-solving often benefit from uninterrupted time and greater flexibility.

Team relationships develop differently.

Trust, shared understanding and a sense of belonging are often built through everyday interactions that take place around formal work rather than as part of it. Informal conversations, spontaneous problem-solving and opportunities to observe how colleagues work all play a role in helping teams function effectively.

These interactions can be harder to recreate in hybrid environments, particularly when teams are newly formed or when members are joining an established team.

The research found that newcomers, in particular, reported stronger communication, team engagement and connection to organisational culture when spending time with colleagues in person.

This suggests that organisations may need to think differently about how they build relationships and develop cohesion when colleagues are not regularly in the same location.

Experience of hybrid working varies with our strengths

The research also highlights an important point that is sometimes overlooked in discussions about hybrid work: people do not experience it in the same way.

When responses were analysed by Team Role, clear differences emerged.

Co-ordinators and Shapers tended to report more positive experiences of co-located working. Given that these roles often involve bringing people together, facilitating collaboration and maintaining momentum, it is perhaps unsurprising that they place greater value on working alongside others.

Implementers and Specialists, by contrast, tended to view remote and hybrid working more positively. The opportunity to focus, work systematically and spend uninterrupted time on tasks appears to align more closely with the way these individuals prefer to contribute.

These differences serve as a useful reminder that hybrid working is not simply a question of location. It is also a question of contribution.

Understanding how different people work most effectively can help organisations make more informed decisions about when teams benefit from being together and when independent working may be preferable.

What successful organisations do differently

Another significant finding was the relationship between organisational culture and employee experience.

Those who felt their organisation viewed hybrid working positively consistently reported higher levels of effectiveness and engagement than those working in organisations where remote and hybrid working were viewed negatively.

This finding suggests that successful hybrid working depends on more than policy. Trust, autonomy and clear expectations all appear to influence how people experience hybrid arrangements.

At the same time, the research indicates that a positive attitude towards hybrid work is not, in itself, sufficient. Even in supportive organisations, many respondents still reported stronger connections to their team and organisational culture when spending time with colleagues face to face.

The implication is that flexibility and connection should not be viewed as competing priorities. Both require deliberate attention if hybrid working is to be effective over the long term.

Designing collaboration intentionally

Perhaps the most important lesson from the research is that hybrid working works best when organisations think carefully about the purpose of different forms of work.

Many respondents described situations where people travelled into the office only to spend the day on video calls, or arrived to find few colleagues present. Others described doing collaborative work remotely that might have been achieved more effectively in person.

These experiences point towards a broader issue. The question is often framed as where people should work, when the more useful question may be what kind of work they are doing.

Focused, individual work may be well suited to remote environments. Activities that rely on discussion, relationship-building, onboarding, creative thinking or collective decision-making may benefit from people spending time together.

Organisations that approach hybrid working in this way are often less concerned with attendance and more concerned with ensuring that people are in the right place, with the right colleagues, for the right reasons.

Looking ahead

The debate about hybrid working has matured considerably over the past few years.

The evidence increasingly suggests that most organisations have found ways to support individual effectiveness in a hybrid environment. The more difficult task is ensuring that teams remain connected, cohesive and aligned over time.

This is particularly important as workplaces become more geographically dispersed and as people increasingly move between teams, projects and organisations.

The organisations most likely to succeed will be those that recognise that productivity alone is not enough. Effective teamwork depends on relationships, communication and shared understanding, all of which require careful attention in hybrid environments.

Flexibility remains important. So does connection.

The challenge is recognising that both are essential to sustainable team performance.