A comparative analysis of the drivers and outcomes of work, location and commuting choices of the office only, hybrid, and home/other location only workers

Abstract

Hybrid work in an office and non-office locations on the same or different days, has become a mainstream work pattern in addition to only working in the office or working from home (WFH). This paper compares the three work groups within a framework covering drivers and outcomes for interconnected work patterns, location and commuting choices, using survey data of 981 randomly sampled employees in Australia. The research goes beyond the socioeconomic characteristics of employees to examine other reasons why the three groups choose the way they work and commute, and their work-related motivation, performance and wellbeing. The research reveals the following key findings: 1) Having the highest level of motivation drives hybrid workers to work hard with more working hours than other groups. The long working hours, however, have a detrimental effect on their wellbeing and job performance, despite the highest level of job satisfaction. However, they perform best in terms of contextual performance when more responsibilities and challenges are present. 2) The WFH/other only group has the healthiest wellbeing and the least counterproductive work behaviour on job performance. This suggests that work location is not the key reason for poor job performance and hence productivity. 3) The office-only workers have the best task performance as well as the second-best performance for contextual performance where more responsibilities and challenges are required. 4) A discrete choice model for the three groups suggests that commuting and work patterns for each day of the week (DoW) and time of the day (ToD), together with roles in the organisation, enable us to predict whether employees are likely to belong to one of three work-location alternatives. These findings suggest a need to shift the focus of work and transport policy from the predominate focus on location to other work-related issues, such as work-related wellbeing, and to consider ways to recognise better work arrangements as a significant contributor to improved workforce performance.