Since the early 2020s, fundamental changes have been taking place in the world of work, especially inknowledge-based services. Work has become much more flexible, and this change has been beneficial to both companies and employees. The developments in private banking provide insight into the adjustments being made in office and knowledge work as a whole, as the industry has always been a pioneer when it comes to implementing new technologies and work models.

It is clear that, despite the volatility of previous years, the changes occurring in the world of work are by no means over, and the development of hybrid work shows no signs of slowing down. For this reason, we have produced an up-to-date spotlight study to supplement our opening study on hybrid work forms from 2023 (‘The real new normal’) – as always, based on representative survey data from the private banking industry.

The findings are encouraging: the new hybrid forms of work are making work more efficient, motivating and healthy overall, as high levels of responsibility and autonomy can be achieved thanks to the professional attitude of everyone involved.

For corporate and HR managers, and for executive managers in particular, the freedoms opened up by hybrid work are being experienced as an opportunity to achieve better motivation and performance – without having to sacrifice occupational health and safety or healthy work organisation. At the same time, many employees are willing and able to take on more responsibility in their work and how it is organised, without overburdening themselves. This results in progress at a high level in the organisation of working conditions – despite all the changes taking placein the course of a profound transformation. Private banks thus remain modern and attractive employers.

The results in detail:

• Hybrid is established and here to stay: Hybrid work – i.e. a mixture of working in the office/workplace and remote work – has become firmly established in knowledge-based services and will remain a key feature of the world of work. Although the percentage of remote work has declined somewhat recently, hybrid work remains by far the predominant form of work: in private banking, more than half of employees work in a hybrid working environment and more than three quarters work away from the office at least occasionally.
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• ‍Hybrid is everywhere: While flexible and remote work was once reserved for particular activities, hybrid work is now present in all areas in private banks. Key roles such as IT, backoffice, organisation and HR, where an above-average percentage of tasks can be carried out away from the office, continue to dominate. However, 40 per cent of frequent hybrid workers are now based in the area of investment banking,corporate banking, private banking and retail banking (including branch work).The statistics also show that hybrid work is not available exclusively to executives and has become firmly established among the workforce as a whole.
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• ‍Remote work is more than just working from home: In hybrid work, the most common form of remote work continues to be working from home. However, remote work now increasingly includes working from locations away from the home, such as working from satellite offices and coworking centres, on customer premises and on trips. There has also been a significant increase in the percentage of employees who are able to work remotely from other (European) countries. And given the increasing number of employees with care obligations, it can be expected that greater working flexibility will also become established for workers who have relatives in need of care.
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• ‍Hybrid, a healthier way to work: Hybrid forms of work have no negative impact on the satisfaction or health of employees. Both the overall satisfaction and the subjective sense of well-being among frequent hybrid workers are very high, at similar levels as for all employees in the private banking industry. And complaints such as stress, exhaustion and depressed mood are much lower in hybrid work than the overall average.
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• ‍Integrated work processes: Two years ago, executives and employees were still struggling to synchronise work processes in hybrid teams. However, the majority of companies now seem to have overcome these initial problems: both frequent hybrid workers and executives in hybrid work environments rate their goal achievement and efficiency as above average. In other words, hybrid work processes have a positive effect on work performance and profitability.
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• ‍‘Next-level’ work balance: The balance between work and private life in private banks, which was already good, is given an extra boost by hybrid forms of work. 85 per cent of hybrid workers rate their work balance as positive, which is 6 percentage points more than the average for all employees. Hybrid work also has no negative impact on the separation of work and private matters.
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• ‍High team and management quality: The good rating for hybrid work processes is based on the consistently high team and management quality. The amount of trust between executives and hybrid workers in particular seems to have remained intact – a key factor for success when teamwork is spread across multiple locations. Something else that stands out is the above-average rating for team organisation, which indicates that communication is working well.
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• ‍Hybrid workers particularly committed: The less employees work when sick(‘presenteeism’) or take sick leave without being ill (‘absenteeism’), the better are typically work conditions and employee commitment. Hybrid work also has a positive impact here, with both values below the average in this group. This implies that hybrid workers have higher levels of commitment to their employers.
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• ‍Flexible work locations and flexible working hours go hand in hand: Employees in the private banking industry who have more freedom to choose where they work also have more flexible working hours. Almost one half (48 per cent) of hybrid workers can organise their working hours with high flexibility (flexi-time without core working hours or trust-based working hours), compared with 38 per cent of all employees. This high level of flexibility results in hybrid employees having above-average satisfaction with how their working hours are organised (90 percent positive ratings).
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• ‍No increase in working hours: Despite the common concern that flexible mobile works could result in longer working hours, this is not the case. In the private banking industry, hybrid workers actually work shorter hours than other employees, work overtime much less (almost a quarter below average) and work on evenings and weekends much less often. They do, however, use their flexibilityt o work early in the morning more often – without increasing their working hours overall.

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