The workplace was already undergoing a transformation before Covid put paid to the daily commute for whole swathes of office workers. Flexible workspaces were already on the rise but as soon as the industry realised that creative work could still be done from home, all bets were off.
Working from home isn’t for everyone, and a new hybrid model is emerging across the creative industries. Many are balancing the benefits of in-person and remote work in what has become the modern hybrid model. In 2023, remote marketing roles increased by 177%, with an overhaul of not just where we work but how we work, with trials showing the benefits of four-day weeks.
For many creative companies, hybrid working offers the best of both worlds. Driftime®, a digital design and impact agency, operates as a remote-first company with team members across the globe, with those in the UK south gathering in a co-working space in Brighton once a month. “This works thanks to a good comms setup”, says co-founder and creative director Abb-d Taiyo. “Communication is at the bedrock of any successful hybrid company culture, with frequent digital touchpoints between team members helping to foster a sense of connection across waters, time zones and continents,” Taiyo says.
“Communication is at the bedrock of any successful hybrid company culture…”
Abb-d Taiyo“We make good use of collaborative digital tools and online spaces such as FigJam, Gather and Notion to work on tasks collectively and check-in regularly.” This, he says, “shapes a hybrid digital workplace that feels reminiscent of an informal in-person shared space, with the added benefit of no mandatory commute or unnecessary extra expenses.”
One advantage of hybrid working is the opportunity creatives have to reimagine our dream physical workplace and design it digitally. “We’ve found that the physical distance we experience as a remote team located as far as Portugal through to Brazil, by way of Cardiff, Norwich and the Sussex coast, is closed by the digital spaces we’ve nurtured and physical places we share,” says Taiyo. “We’ve taken the best bits of in-person and remote working and optimised them to serve each of our team who all have different needs and desires.”
