Hybrid Work

What hybrid work is

Hybrid work (العمل المختلط), also called hybrid working, is an arrangement under which an employee works part of their time at the organisation’s premises and part of it away from them, in a set proportion or on set days. The employee works neither entirely at the premises nor entirely away from them.

The models of hybrid work that share one name

Three different models are grouped under the name hybrid work, and each organises attendance in a different way.

Fixed days for everyone. The whole team attends on the same days. This model is easier to coordinate, because every member of the team knows in advance which days the others will be at the premises. But it leaves the employee less flexibility, since the days of attendance are set for the team as a whole and not chosen by the individual.

Days chosen by the employee. Each employee decides which days to spend at the premises. The arrangement gives the employee more flexibility, but it needs a rule that prevents each person from attending on a different day. Without such a rule, every member of the team can come in on a day of their choosing, and no one meets anyone else at the premises.

Attendance when needed. No days are set. Attendance is tied to an activity that calls for it, so the employee comes to the premises when that activity requires them to be there and not otherwise. Of the three models, attendance when needed can be the hardest to manage, but it can also be the best suited to roles in which the work is done independently.

Announcing “hybrid work” without specifying which of these models is meant leaves each department to understand something different by it.

The structural risk in hybrid work, and how it is addressed

The structural risk in hybrid work is unequal presence. The employee who attends more sees the managers more, and hears a decision while it is being made, not after it has been communicated. Over time, this can turn into a difference in opportunities that does not arise from performance.

The response to unequal presence is procedural, not a matter of goodwill. It rests on three measures:

• A meeting is held either entirely in person or entirely remotely: not with half the room in the meeting room and the other half on a screen.
• A decision is recorded in writing: regardless of where it was taken.
• Attendance is not an indicator in performance appraisal: unless the role explicitly requires it.

A meeting held under the first measure takes one form throughout. When it is held entirely in person, everyone taking part is in the room; when it is held entirely remotely, everyone taking part is on a screen. The case it rules out is the meeting in which some participants sit together in the room while the others join through a screen.

Under the second measure, a decision recorded in writing reaches the employee who was away from the premises in the same form as it reaches the employee who was present. That holds whether the decision was taken in a meeting room, in a remote meeting or in a conversation between two colleagues.

The third measure keeps attendance out of performance appraisal. Where attendance counts as an indicator, the time an employee spends at the premises enters the appraisal alongside their performance, and the measure rules that out. The exception is a role that explicitly requires attendance, where the requirement comes from the role and not from the arrangement.

What makes an office day in hybrid work worth it

If an employee travels to the office only to sit in remote meetings from their desk, they have borne the cost of the journey and received nothing in return for it. The day at the premises has then been spent on work that could have been done in the same way from anywhere else.

For that reason, the days of attendance in hybrid work are set aside for work that is not done remotely with the same efficiency:

• Working together on a problem: colleagues working jointly on the same problem at the same time.
• Bringing new employees in: the onboarding of employees who have recently joined.
• Reviews that need open discussion: reviews in which the participants have to discuss the matter openly with one another.

What hybrid work does not change

A hybrid arrangement is operational in origin. On its own, it does not reduce any wage or any entitlement agreed in the employment contract. Moving part of the working time away from the premises changes where the work is done; it does not, by that alone, change what the employee was promised under the contract.

Where the arrangement touches a term stated in the contract, such as the place of work or the working hours, it changes a term of that contract. The parties to the contract are the employer and the employee, so the change is one for the two of them to agree, not one for an understanding reached with the line manager alone.

Article 52 of the Saudi Labor Law (نظام العمل) lists the type of work and its place among the particulars that the unified model the Ministry sets for each type of employment contract contains at a minimum. Article 51 of the Labor Law requires the employment contract to be written in two copies, one held by each party, and allows either party to demand at any time that the contract be put in writing. Article 58 of the Labor Law requires the worker’s written consent for a transfer from the original place of work to another place that requires a change of residence. Royal Decree M/44 amended Articles 51 and 52 of the Labor Law. That decree did not amend Article 58 of the Labor Law. In the sources we reviewed, we found no provision of the Labor Law that sets the form a change to the contracted working hours, or to a place of work that involves no change of residence, must take.

The working hours themselves, and the limits within which they are set, are covered in our guide to working hours and the weekly rest in the Saudi Labor Law.

How hybrid work differs from a flexible workplace

A flexible workplace (مكان العمل المرن) is a wider umbrella. It also covers flexibility in timing and in the volume of hours worked, and it can extend to working remotely in full. Hybrid work is one pattern within that umbrella, and it concerns how the place of work is divided. All hybrid work is flexible, but not all flexible work is hybrid.

Neither term is the flexible work contract (العمل المرن) defined in paragraph Two of Article 27 of the Implementing Regulation (اللائحة التنفيذية) of the Labor Law, which is a separate contract type with conditions of its own, discussed under employment status. Hybrid work and a flexible workplace are ways of organising where and when work is done, not types of employment contract.

This is an explanation of the concept and of the statutory provisions cited, not legal advice.