Hybrid jobs are in hot demand, and for good reason: They offer many employees what they consider to be the best of both worlds: the flexibility of remote work with the collaboration and socialization benefits of working in the office.
But conversations around hybrid schedules can be complicated, as companies interpret what a “flexible schedule” means differently. At Grocery TV, this looks like a few days spent collaborating in-office, with two “office-optional” days in which employees can choose to work at home for added flexibility and increased heads-down time.
We caught up with Laura Tyler, a senior software engineer, who described how her employer makes flexible scheduling work for everyone through healthy tools and habits that keep communication strong and projects on track.
Grocery TV is an in-store retail media platform.
Describe your company’s rule of thumb for flexible schedules — in one quotable line?
Monday, Wednesday and Friday are in-office collaboration days, while Tuesday and Thursday are office optional for deep focus at home.
What metric or policy shows it works?
Power Hours on non-office days give the team the uninterrupted focus time we need for complex work. It also helps people feel confident about taking that time without worrying they’ll miss an important meeting.
Which habit or tool keeps async healthy?
We focus on keeping context easy to find and up to date. Our Lucidcharts document core workflows and database schemas, and PR reminders help us keep them current. Project decisions live in our ticketing system, Linear, so information is right where people are working. The full tech team meets twice a week to share updates and talk through cross-functional topics, and we use a technology Slack channel to collect feedback and surface decisions so everyone stays in the loop.
