It’s encouraging to see others starting to shine the light on the upcoming hybrid office employee divide like this article, "Hybrid" return-to-office models could create subcaste of workers. The simple fact is whatever is coming next is going to be different than pre-2020. Some people in the office all of the time, some people in the office some of the time, some people never in the office — and everything in between. Leaders have to lean in and embrace figuring out how their teams are going to work and stay connected in the coming years. Even pre-pandemic, anyone traveling frequently for business had many of the same ‘remote’ challenge of feeling disconnected from the rest of the team.

It keeps coming back to being INTENTIONAL and not just slapping a policy in place (everyone switch to awful remote video meeting tool X, everyone get back to the office asap, everyone stand on your left foot…). Without support and organizational initiatives to help employees connect & engage, the ‘remote’ worker penalty is going to cause a tidal shift of job changes as people seek out organizations that understand the new reality of work.