Hybrid Work as Strategic Infrastructure: Moving Beyond Perks and Passes

What does a "workplace" mean to you? The deep disruption of the pandemic rewired how we think of our home, office, community and domestic life. After all, the shift to mass remote work dissolved all traditional boundaries between home and workplaces - with work and play, family life and line management, the domestic and the professional all merging into one within the home office.

Challenging for business yes, but also revealing of the ways in which these rigid categories of home and office no longer serve us.

Fast-forward to today, when a staggering 91% of employees offer a hybrid work arrangement. Hybrid work means a blend of remote work, on-site work and adopting flexible office spaces or coworking. It's a surefire sign that organizations are learning from that post-pandemic rewiring: ditching archaic and inflexible black-and-white models in favor of hybrid work.

This is bringing clear benefits to employers and employees alike: 80% of employees say that working flexibly has had a positive impact on their quality of life, and 41% of employers believe that an increase in home/hybrid working has led to increased productivity/efficiency in their organization. Others report business benefits from being able to recruit from a wider area for new talent, to reducing the environmental impacts of their organization associated with real-estate, business travel and commuting.

But Croissant data shows that only a staggering 4% of businesses are shaping their hybrid work offer with a strategic policy. Faced with the complexity of totally new ways of working, too many leaders are just throwing a coworking pass at the problem. Others try and fail to mandate a return-to-office (RTO) movement that is unpopular and unfeasible. Others simply leave their employees to their own devices, making no attempt to structure in-person collaboration.

This is a bonfire waiting to happen. With so many employees expecting hybrid work, great potential for it to drive competitive advantage and innovation, hybrid work cannot be seen as a mere perk. Hybrid work is strategic infrastructure, and must be treated as such.

So how can businesses move from 'hybrid-as-a-bonus' to 'hybrid-as-a-business-asset'? In this article, we explore what enterprise leaders really want from their hybrid work in 2025 and give you a roadmap for how to get there. To make the leap, we must first understand the principle of the "third space" that's revolutionizing workplaces around the world.

How the "Third Space" Has Changed The Nature of Work

Ever heard of a "third space"? If you haven't, you've come to the right place.

The term was first coined by sociologist Ray Oldenburg in the late 1980s to capture the idea of a space that people go to that isn't their first space, their home, and isn't their second space, their traditional place of work. It's something different, a place to meet with members of the community, a place to network, a place to share ideas, take part in wellness events or educational talks.

Today, almost two thirds of US workers report spending time working from a place that isn't their home or their office. The shift away from the binaries of home vs office, and the boom in hybrid work culture, means the "third space" is on the rise in 2025.

It is no surprise that a survey of over 1000 UK business leaders found that a third were using flexible or coworking spaces to offer a "third space" to employees to meet, learn from each other, connect and collaborate.

But if we travel back to Ray Oldenburg's definition, what the space looks like or where it is located is actually irrelevant. Instead it's about how it's used and how it impacts its users - the societal gap it fills, which has become all the more important in the era of remote work. It's a new way of working rather than a new place to work.

Oldenburg calls the "third space" a "generic designation for a great variety of places that host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work."

"Happily anticipated" is key here. A "third space" is something people can rely on, look forward to, and have positive connected experiences when they arrive at.

In other words, its value lies in how it is used rather than the physical space itself.

In the age of hybrid work, businesses must learn from this principle. Their working model shouldn't just be about where employees go to work everyday. Instead, it's about whether they feel valued, whether they understand the wider values of their organization, whether their core wellbeing is protected, whether they have a clear sense of career progression, whether they feel empowered to innovate and be creative in their day-to-day projects and whether they feel a wider sense of belonging at work.

With 75% of employers now seeking new kinds of work spaces for their employees in the next year it's time to think beyond just a co-working pass or a business perk, and see hybrid work through the lens of the "third space". But what's driving the "third space" movement?

Why Are Businesses and Employees Seeking Out "Third Space" Solutions

So what do enterprises actually want from hybrid work in 2025 and beyond?

Scalability

Total freedom for employees about where they work simply isn't scalable or sustainable. Unstructured hybrid work (for example when office attendance is entirely optional, employees are left to self-organize or there are no formal programs for collaboration) is proven to create organizational drag. This causes communication friction, reinforces inequity and fails to address hidden biases. Though many think employees are always more productive at home, that's simply not the case. Actually, reactive, unplanned transitions to remote setups trigger productivity declines. Increasingly, business leaders want to offer structured flexibility for their employees, balancing autonomy and choice with executive operational grip that can be scaled up as needed.

Consolidation

The benefits of hybrid work will quickly be eroded if the administrative efforts become too costly, complex and time-intensive. For example, the growth of "third space" use by hybrid businesses means HR leads face a spike in operational burden from managing multiple workspace vendors in different areas. A similar story exists for digital collaboration tool contracts like cloud storage, videoconferencing or cybersecurity. An overwhelming 95% of senior IT executives plan to consolidate tech vendors this year, and it's no different for workplace vendors. Office managers and their leaders are looking to consolidate their workspace contracts, for instance by working with an expert workplace solution vendor like Croissant to address spiralling vendor management costs.

Retention

Studies show a structured hybrid model could lead to a 33% reduction in employee resignations - but only after a transition to a recognized and reliable schedule. Given the high costs associated with recruitment, training and turnover especially in distributed teams, today's enterprises want their "third space" solution to make employees want to stick around and invest in the future of their organization. As the battle for talent heats up, in particular in tech and science sectors, bolstering employee loyalty is rising up the priority list for CEOs approaching hybrid work in 2026.

Isolation-proofing

Surveys show that unmanaged employee loneliness could cost US employers around $154 billion annually in stress-related absenteeism. As workforces disperse into a wider geographical area and gather in person less, organizations face a serious risk in the form of worker isolation. It's first and foremost a matter of care for their workers, but also a matter of cost for their business in the long run. Psychological well-being is intrinsically linked to economic output and workforce stability. That's why leaders are looking to their hybrid work models to bake in preventative measures, employee well-being and work-life balance to protect their workforce. For example, office managers are now designing mandatory in-office "collision days" around maximizing connection, mentoring, and collaboration to actively mitigate the financial and personal risk of isolation.

Hybrid Work as Strategic Infrastructure: An Action Plan for Business

So how can businesses re-frame their hybrid work model and their real-estate strategy to deliver on these core drivers? At Croissant, we've worked with business leaders, real-estate leads, office managers and Heads of People all around the world. We've had a front row seat for the workplace revolution, and have seen first-hand how brands are making a success of the "third space" movement and combining their people, real-estate and remote work strategies to offer not just a place to work, but a way to work. Here's our five-part plan to change your approach.

Phase one is data centralization

Start by gathering all the data insights you can on the spaces you use, their uptake, what your employees use them for. This should be pooled within an integrated workplace management system and woven together with data on who your employees are, how they like to work, who they work closest with within and outside of their teams. This should be as granular as which line management pairings use which coworking spaces on which day of the week, and for what kind of work whether it's forward planning or career development, client meetings or brainstorming. In fact 46% of organizations report data visibility issues on working models. Addressing data inconsistencies or unavailability is the first and foundational stage when embedding flexible work within your business infrastructure.

Phase two is strategic vendor consolidation

The next step is to audit the list of vendors your office manager or HR leads have to interface with as part of flexible-as-a-perk. How much time does your HR team spend tactical rate shopping for coworking spaces across regions to fit the various needs of your customers? How much time does your real-estate leader spend building contacts in new cities? How much resource is lost building relationships with office space providers around the world to find locations for remote teams to meet? It's time to prioritize a single vendor partnership capable of providing global consistency, centralized compliance across regions, detailed workspace data insights and enhanced security protocols, reclaiming HR capacity for creative talent work.

Phase three is investment in automation

By automating workflows, space management, and performance tracking, businesses can integrate hybrid work into the backbone of operations — improving efficiency, equity, and long-term scalability. Almost half of businesses now use AI or automation to optimize workspace usage and reduce office costs — which could cut real estate spending by up to 30%. Automation transforms hybrid work from an unwieldy perk into an intelligent business infrastructure — one that continuously balances people, space, and productivity through data and workflow orchestration.

Phase four is communicating your hybrid work model as a cultural asset

The provision of "third spaces" is also about how your vision for hybrid work is disseminated throughout teams and implemented. Bringing in your new hybrid-as-infrastructure approach, leaders must show a deep understanding of the challenges hybrid workers face, and how their chosen approach makes sense within long-term business objectives. That could mean a monthly in-person gathering that's used exclusively for creative brainstorming and idea-sharing about how to bring in new clients for the next business quarter, or an all-office day each week that pairs traditionally siloed departments to unlock mutual understanding and inspiration. This might be structured around a lunchtime wellbeing activity laid on by the company, like an office run-club or yoga workshop.

Phase five is measuring the benefits of your model

So, your new hybrid structure is rolled out, employees are bought into it, it's underpinned by data and technology, but the work doesn't end there. Ongoing effectiveness must be measured as a basis for future improvement - with HR and real-estate leaders reviewing your policies and adjusting strategy as required every month. But this measurement shouldn't just be about attendance. Instead, put in place the ability to track cultural metrics such as collaboration frequency, employee sentiment, and isolation. This can inform of yearly or quarterly reviews to make sure your hybrid work infrastructure is up-to-date.

By taking these five steps, you can create a work environment for your employees that brings together physical space, digital tools and collaborative structures to become a true engine of culture. It is clear that high-growth organizations are increasingly moving away from ad-hoc flexibility and towards intentional models - supported by integrated technology and specialized partners - that combine place and practice to deliver a "third space" that maximizes both physical and human assets.

The Future of Work is Here — Is Your Infrastructure Ready?

The shift from "workplace as location" to "workplace as infrastructure" isn't coming — it's already here. Forward-thinking organizations are abandoning the false choice between rigid office mandates and chaotic remote policies. Instead, they're building something new: strategic infrastructure that treats hybrid work as a competitive advantage, not a compromise.

The "third space" isn't just another corporate buzzword. It represents a fundamental rethinking of how work happens in the 21st century. When properly implemented, it solves the isolation crisis of remote work while avoiding the inflexibility of traditional offices. It turns real estate from a fixed cost into a dynamic asset. Most importantly, it transforms employee experience from a series of perks into a coherent strategy for productivity, retention, and growth.

The question isn't whether your organization needs a hybrid work strategy — it's whether you'll build one that actually works. The companies still treating flexibility as a recruiting gimmick or cost-cutting measure are already falling behind. The winners are those who recognize that in an era of distributed teams and digital transformation, your workspace strategy is your business strategy.

Stop throwing coworking passes at the problem. Start building the infrastructure your team needs to thrive.