In September 2021, Harry’s officially launched the new hybrid work model across their global organization of three offices and 600 employees. A year later, we have a better understanding of the actions and approaches that turned out to be most integral to successful transition and adoption. In particular, three rose to the top:

• Identifying design principles to guide the strategy and design of a new working model
• Focusing on moments that matter most
• Establishing transparent and continuous two-way communication

Data-informed design principles

As a first step, we sought input from employees in all locations, departments, and seniority levels to understand what was most important to them. We ran companywide surveys and facilitated 11 focus groups with 99 team members, approximately 15 percent of Harry’s employee base. From the survey and focus group data, we learned:

• Most people wanted to come back to the office, though not everyone.
• People wanted a gradual shift back into the office rather than a hard switch.
• Tension was arising between flexibility and mandates. Not providing flexibility made employees feel they were not trusted by leadership. At the same time, people craved a degree of certainty and clear expectations to coordinate effective collaboration.
• While it would be impossible to satisfy everyone, people were most concerned about work-life balance, productivity, cross-functional work, and connection.
• It was hard for employees to know definitively what they would want or need in the future, given the disruption caused by the pandemic.

After reviewing the feedback, there was consensus among the Harry’s executive team that employees wanted the company to enact a hybrid model.

“But that didn’t mean it was a straightforward decision,” Childers recalled. "It was tricky to navigate potential tensions in what we were hearing or feeling from the team. For example, a desire for both connection and flexibility can be inherently in tension, because coordinating days reduces flexibility. We leaned into transparency and understood that not everyone was going to be happy with where we landed."

Our team then gathered a diverse set of leaders from across the company to imagine what hybrid work could enable at its best. Coupled with data from previous surveys, this work helped us prioritize safety, clarity, fairness, connection, and productivity. We refined these priorities into design principles that guided our decisions throughout the process.

1. Does it put safety first? First and foremost, we prioritized safety and employee comfort around risk. This led us to hire an epidemiologist, increase safety protocols (e.g., air filtration, PCR testing offered 3x per week), and run fireside chats to share the latest COVID-related data and information.‍
2. Is it fair and inclusive? We designed our process to be collaborative with a broad segment of Harry's employees so we could listen deeply and create equitable experiences across personal identities, roles, geographies and needs. We ran extensive surveys and then shared back insights and how they were used in decision-making. We also held numerous testing sessions to help us iterate the tools we created.‍
3. Does it foster connection? We embraced the value of building relationships and community—and sought to do so in a way that activated company values and fostered moments of delight. We revamped day-to-day work processes and tools, adapting those that could potentially feel exclusionary to remote workers, such as onboarding, and made sure to create hybrid moments of connection in addition to those that happen in person.‍
4. Does it create clarity? There was a lot to process for employees, so it was important to create transparency around decision-making, including making information easy to use. We wrestled with how much to mandate at the company level and how much to leave open to teams. Ultimately, we decided some companywide guardrails were needed to create clarity and fairness (e.g., setting standard working hours, a loose expectation of being in the office two to three days per week), but tried to keep mandates to a minimum.‍
5. Does it support productivity? While we set some companywide parameters, we largely entrusted teams to determine how to best enable effective individual and collaborative work among themselves.

Through 1:1s and a weekly briefing at the leadership team meeting, the people team worked with Harry's executives to align the design principles with Harry's current culture, as well as their ambitions for the future.

Clarifying design principles is a foundational step, one that is especially important in urgent, consequential situations. Design principles reduce the risk of getting off track in the midst of competing concerns, and they provide clarity for prioritization—especially for executive teams. They help guide decision-making and provide a bulwark against internal misalignment. By identifying what's most critical for the greatest impact, design principles focus efforts and keep everyone on the same page.

Moments that matter most

Identifying the right moments to focus on first can facilitate a smoother, faster and more successful transition.

Using the insight from surveys and focus groups, we identified the concerns and pain points that had the greatest impact on individuals (burnout from blurred boundaries, commute time, loss of flexibility with a rigid nine-to-five schedule, etc.), teams (lack of clarity into who would be in the office when, meeting overload, etc.), and the organization (lack of shared communication norms, uncertainty about how and when to gather in the office, etc.).

We then zeroed in on the moments that were most important for inclusion, a key cultural pillar that was most at risk of being eroded in a hybrid work environment. Three moments came up again and again:

Moment 1: Setting sustainable schedules

Working together in an office offers helpful cues as to whether someone is available—cues that don't exist in a hybrid environment. Our team decided to use our calendars as a proxy and introduced three new "types" of time as a method for communicating when and how people are working:

• "In the Office" lets people know that they can find you in person
• "Heads Down Time" signals deep, focused work time
• "Golden Time" protects personal commitments that fall during the workday.

We encouraged people to book these types of time on their calendars, and had senior leaders model the practice to drive adoption.

In particular, "Golden Time" was a huge success. It gave everyone—regardless of position or level—permission to hold commitments on their calendar without having to explain why, which resulted in greater equity. A child's soccer game is just as important as a therapy appointment. If someone's Golden Time created a challenge for their team, managers worked with the employee to identify a solution.

"Flexibility is the #1 thing people want," said Childers. "We saw that in every survey or discussion—but it means different things to each person so it's really hard to address it at a corporate level. The unlock for us was giving individuals agency and the ability to figure it out on their own, and then make decisions as a team. Golden Time was a powerful signal and people were floored that we cared."

Moment 2: Clarifying norms and expectations with a re-kick-off workshop

For teams, we introduced a new ritual: the re-kick-off. The 90-minute workshop, facilitated by leaders, centered around a team conversation about collaboration norms—including communication, ways of working and meeting times. These discussions created an opportunity to support individual flexibility, underpinned by clarity around expectations.

Team leaders were trained on how to run these sessions, and they were given a detailed facilitator guide and slides designed to capture their "Team Agreements." We cascaded these re-kick-off meetings through the organization over four weeks, with the leadership team doing theirs first, then running it with their direct reports, and so on. Because of this approach, managers got to experience the re-kick-off as an individual employee before being asked to lead their teams through it.

As Childers noted, "It was amazing how little of that sharing had gone on about remote versus hybrid and which days. From a flexibility perspective, we didn't want to have to mandate ways that teams should work. We wanted to enable them to create what worked best for their team. Teams that invested here—and leaders that took a clearer approach to how their team should function—operated a lot more effectively."
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Moment 3: Running inclusive hybrid meetings

Harry’s introduced four companywide meeting norms:

• One person, one screen
• Digital-first experiences
• Moderator mindset
• End the meeting when the video ends

Clear, transparent communication

Throughout the process, Harry’s emphasized transparency by sharing survey data, decision rationales, and ongoing updates across multiple channels, while creating space for employee feedback and dialogue.
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The bottom line

Harry’s hybrid working program resulted in greater autonomy, democratized governance, and more inclusive ways of working. A year after rollout, employee surveys showed strong agreement that the model felt fair, flexible, and supportive of connection. The company’s approach to hybrid work became a meaningful signal of trust and values—one that continues to shape its future.