Humans have been negotiating since time immemorial, perhaps even before we developed a word for it. According to social contract theory, people live together in a society by agreeing to surrender some of their freedoms in exchange for the protection of their rights and the maintenance of the social order. This means that negotiations formed a basis for the creation and continuance of civilizations. The word negotiation originated from the Latin phrase “negare otium”, which means “lack of leisure”. It later came to mean “business” when it entered French and Spanish.

Although we have been negotiating with each other about everything on a daily basis, we never emphasized it as much as we do now. Perhaps, we don’t recognize how ubiquitous negotiations are in our daily lives nor do we understand how fundamental negotiations are for the existence of civilization. Everyone now wants to be the best negotiator and everyone thinks they can become the best negotiators. But just like everything else that qualifies for a superlative adjective, there always exists something that doesn’t qualify as the best. It is a comparison. I mean, if everyone is the best, then no one is. Because of this overemphasis on negotiations, no one is honestly negotiating these days. An HR offering a compensation package won’t start with the average; but with the bare minimum. A candidate looking for employment is not going to give the numbers that they will be satisfied with but something way above that level. Well, I’m not calling them out as dishonest, but the problem is they do so because, if you are going to be honest, you won’t get the best. In fact, being honest in negotiations will actually cost you. When you give your honest number, the other party will think that your actual expectation is way below and they will negotiate hard. Good faith negotiation is dead! All that exists today in the name of negotiation is hoodwinking. We all have become hoodwinkers and deceive ourselves that we are the best negotiators.

We all want to become the best negotiators because negotiation is considered one of the most important skills in the knowledge economy that runs our world today. In our pursuit to build our negotiation skills, we have lost good faith in negotiations. We have become comfortable with the middle-ground fallacy. Everyone now thinks that the middle ground is the best for both parties in a negotiation. It sucks! When both parties know it is going to be the middle ground, why even negotiate? What a pointless exercise!

With this background, I want to actually rant (Yes, it is starting just now) about one of the worst inventions of the modern world that cropped up during the COVID-19 pandemic, “the hybrid work model”. Nothing else can be a better example of how worse can the middle-ground solution be. The corporate world that destroyed good-faith negotiations also invented this. In general, when you create a hybrid you expect to create something that combines the best of both worlds, not the worst of both worlds. I mean, the telos for creating a hybrid cannot be finding a middle-ground that works for no one. Employees want to work remotely but employers want them to be at the office premises. So, the solution is the hybrid work model that expects the employees to be at the office for 2 to 3 days a week, and the rest of the days they can be working from their home or anywhere. How generous! This is far worse than working exclusively at the office for employees who want to work remotely and even worse for the employers. What a lose-lose solution that anyone can come up with! No, my point is not to debate which of the solutions remote work, office work, or even the middle-ground solution is the best. It actually depends on various parameters. There is a merit in each case. However, when we try to find a general solution for the masses, the middle ground cannot be the solution at all. The middle-ground solutions can exist, but they should be individualized. If a company has a hybrid work model, I’d expect it to allow some of its employees to work remotely and some of them exclusively at the office. That’s it. It shall not and should not be the case where the company expects an employee to be at the office some days and allows them to work at home some other days. This makes no sense! Why would anyone propose this? There is no valid reason apart from the fact that people thrive in the culture of bad faith and hoodwinking.

In this blog post, the term ‘hybrid work model’ refers specifically to situations where the company expects employees to be in the office on certain days a week and allows them to work from home on others. I’m not discussing the case in which a company allows some employees to work from home and wants some other employees to work from the office all the time.

In the hybrid model, by going to the office a few days a week, are people exchanging their freedom to work from home in order to protect their freedom to work from home? Is this a tautology or what? I can’t wrap my head around this idea. I’m sure many would be happy to list out the benefits of the hybrid work model. So, let’s take a look at the top 5 benefits according to Gallup's findings:

1. Increased work-life balance

2. More efficient use of time

3. Freedom to choose when and where I work

4. Less burnout or fatigue

5. Higher productivity

Work-life balance is increased because you have more time to spend with your family on the days you are working from home.

More efficient use of time because on the days you are working from home, you save time by not traveling to the office and you can manage your schedule better.

Freedom to choose when and where I work can be applicable only when your company has a specific type of hybrid work model. If you are mandated to come to the office 3 days a week, you don’t have the freedom when and where you work. But, on the days you work from home, you have the freedom to work from your home or at Starbucks!

Less burnout or fatigue because you can work from home, right? Is there anyone who says they feel less fatigued or burned out because they work from the office? Maybe your toxic workplace expects you to pull in more hours when you work from home than working from the office and that causes burnout. But, that is a toxic behavior of your boss and this is not the solution for that. In that case, even working exclusively from the office would be a better solution.

Higher productivity is actually relative. People are more productive in hybrid models only in comparison to exclusive in-office work and not against fully remote work. So, this means people are less productive on some days and more productive on other days.

Let’s reflect on this. Do you see the pattern here? Aren’t the top 5 benefits that come from the hybrid work model actually overlapping with remote work benefits? 3 of the 5 benefits are directly attributable to remote work. One of them probably addresses the toxic culture of the company and another depends on the individual’s preferences. Sure, employers do have reasons to want their employees at the office. But, a hybrid work model doesn’t help the masses! You want your manager or senior member to be around to boost morale? Sure, that is a great reason to ask them to be in the office at least a few days a week. If you think this middle-ground approach is doing any favor at all for the masses, then you are mistaken. Both in-office work and remote work predates the COVID-19 pandemic. The hybrid model is just a workaround or an arrangement to comply with the regulations that wanted fewer interactions among people during the time of the pandemic. Remote work became increasingly popular among employees and some new-age companies. But the idea wasn’t popular among most companies and they wanted the employees at the office. These companies then came up with this fallacious middle ground to retain their employees as they didn’t want to lose them to the companies that embraced the new philosophy. It must be noted that companies that were traditionally remote-first before the pandemic hardly embraced the hybrid work model. Only those companies where in-office work was predominant before the pandemic chose to go with the hybrid model.

Before the pandemic, in-office work was the predominant model and only some companies actually embraced full remote work. During the pandemic, all companies that can manage to get work done with a laptop allowed virtually all of their employees to work from home. During the late and post-pandemic periods, more employees wanted to work from home than ever before and they also had more opportunities to work remotely. As a method of retention or passive aggression, those companies that don’t or don’t want to embrace remote work resorted to this middle-ground fallacy. So, you want to work from home? Just come to the office a few days a week. If this hybrid model is a great invention, why didn’t we see such options on Flexjobs or LinkedIn as one of the possible models at this rate as seen today? It is not a great invention. It is a bargain that should not exist.

Some people prefer a 9 to 5 schedule and some others prefer a flexible time. A flexible work hour accommodates everyone’s preferences. The middle ground of asking people to work between a fixed schedule on some days and allowing them to follow a flexible schedule on other days is stupid! At least the pandemic has ended but this hybrid “stupid” model is here to stay.

Let’s get this straight.

1. Do more people want to work remotely since the pandemic? Yes, and actually a lot of them!

2. Do we have more remote opportunities than ever before? Yes, absolutely!

3. Did the companies that allowed remote work before the pandemic come up with the hybrid model? No

4. Who came up with this invention? The companies where the in-office model was predominant before the pandemic.

So, the companies that want you to be at the office couldn’t just say that because they fear losing some of their talents if not all of their talents. They are not ready for that and hence these hoodwinkers are upselling the middle-ground solution. There is no inherent benefit to this hybrid model. Many of the benefits that they claim for the hybrid model are derived from the remote work component. When they are upselling this hybrid model as something great, do know that it is manipulation. The hybrid model is great compared only to in-office work.

Some of you might argue that hybrid work is better as remote work opportunities cannot meet the demand. Well, that is true but I think the upselling of the hybrid work model as an alternative to remote work is killing the growth of remote opportunities. It’s time for the red pill! Companies should take a stance! If they are genuinely flexible, they should allow both in-office and remote positions for different people. If they want their employees at the office, just say that and let go of people who don’t want that. Stop selling the middle ground for the masses!

I’ll end this rant with the respite that the people of the future deride and denounce this fallacy-begotten model. I wouldn’t be surprised if the middle-ground fallacy were eventually to be called the “hybrid work model” fallacy.