Over the past 18 months, there’s been quite a lot of chatter about hybrid work (i.e., workers heading into the office two or three days a week) becoming the new norm. Is that prediction actually coming true in tech?

According to GitHub’s latest State of the Octoverse report, more technologists are indeed shifting to hybrid and fully remote work. Take a look at the chart:

Other surveys have shown that technologists enjoy the idea of hybrid and remote work. In Dice’s Tech Sentiment Report, for example, 85 percent of technologists said they found the prospect of hybrid work anywhere from somewhat to extremely desirable. Ninety-four percent of younger technologists (i.e., those between 18 and 34 years old) thought of a hybrid workplace as either somewhat, very or extremely desirable, compared to 84 percent of those aged 35 and older.

The big question is whether managers will feel the same about a hybrid-work future. Analyst firm Robert Half recently queried 2,800 senior managers in multiple industries (finance, technology, marketing, legal, and more) and found that many of them had concerns about hybrid work; for instance, 22 percent thought hybrid work might interfere with team communication, and 20 percent believed employees might have more trouble working from home. 

According to Emsi Burning Glass, which collects and analyzes millions of job postings from across the country, it’s also clear there’s extensive and sustained demand for remote-only technology jobs. This suggests that, no matter what managers’ concerns about hybrid and remote, this new mode of work is indeed here to stay. Increased communication and a focus on asynchronous work can help teams better manage their hybrid/remote workflows.