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Andy Lake’s 2024 book Beyond Hybrid Working – A Smarter & Transformational Approach to Flexible Working has been gathering very positive reviews!

Here’s a selection of quotes and onward links:

From Workplace Insight, review by Paul Carder:

“For those of you who read this book cover-to-cover, then dip back into sections regularly for Andy Lake’s many generous gifts of wisdom, this book will truly take you ‘beyond hybrid’.

“Beyond that chatter in the magazines and PR mailshots claiming either ‘everyone can work from home; the office is dead’ or the other camp pressing for a ‘back to the office’ future.  The author paints a far more intelligent and nuanced picture, with a spectrum of work and place possibilities, and a clear set of management and organisational competencies and tasks required to move an organisation towards a better future”

An extended and more detailed version of this review is available on Work & Place magazine:

“Commentators are polarised into proposing two different approaches [to hybrid working]: ‘work from home’ or ‘back to the office’.  Critically, this polarised positioning misses the spectrum of work and workstyles which co-exist in the equally broad spectrum of organisations and cultures around the world.

“Andy Lake is certainly not one of those opportunists. He has been writing and teaching about ‘work’ for decades and recently for Work&Place here.  Andy has both led, and participated in, research around the world, focused on Smarter and Flexible Working.  He could have called this new book “Way Before, and Way Beyond the fuss about Hybrid Working”, because he has been fully immersed in new ways of working since the 1990s.  And this is vital, to put the often-weak contemporary debate into context.

“What Andy does so eloquently in this book is not only go ‘beyond hybrid working’ as the title suggests, but also to trace the roots of flexible working …. One of the central messages of Andy Lake’s new book is to get beyond this need to ‘request’ flexibility, and thus move to Smarter Working (Andy Lake’s preferred term) which will “incorporate flexibility in a more dynamic way to provide flexibility-as-normal without the need for making a request”.”

From the Workplace Geeks podcast, series 3, episode 7

“What I love about the book is that in a very structured, very well-thought-out way, it essentially takes the reader through the different facets of work – physical workplace, virtual workplace, cultural workplace – and the argument being, if you’re going to work in a truly smart way, you have to pay attention to enabling all of them, rather than just the physical side of things that we’ve got hung up on with hybrid. But where the book then goes is towards the beneficial outcomes – beneficial for the organisation, for the person and for the planet. You talk about wellbeing, you talk about inclusion, you talk about sustainability – so it is a case for change as much as it’s a method for change”

— Ian Ellison, co-host of Workplace Geeks podcast, Director and Co-Founder of Audiem

You can listen to the podcast on our Flexibility in Sound and Vision page.

Richard Graham, former Head of High Performing Workplace at UK Cabinet Office, on Amazon.co.uk

“This is a compelling book on the trends affecting the world of work for the post-covid decade and beyond. It immerses the reader in how the world is rapidly changing and draws practical insights and conclusions to help organisations and individuals navigate opportunities for the future workplace.

Brimming with ideas, examples and practical advice for managers who need to deliver change, and professionals working in the fields of people, workplace and technology: a must read for anyone involved in transformational workplace change. You will learn A LOT from reading this book.”

Beyond Hybrid Working is cited in a Scottish Government evaluation of hybrid working:

“One of the leading thinkers and practising consultants on hybrid working in the UK is Andy Lake, who worked with UK Government on its previous Smarter Working approach during 2010s. His latest book, ‘Beyond Hybrid Working’ (Routledge, 2024) considers recent practice from several organisations and their learning. Overall, he warns against continuously reducing the discussion about working styles down to home working vs office working and makes the case for replacing the term ‘hybrid working’ with a broader conceptual framework based around Smarter Working.

“This framework seeks to move past the intricacies of figuring out the optimal, one size fits all formula for balancing home and office (e.g. everyone should spend x% of their time each week in the office) and instead points towards organisational policies based around ‘flexible working’ and ‘the extended workplace’ (which includes more ‘places’ than the home and office). The Scottish Futures Trust’s work referenced earlier relies heavily on Andy Lake’s thinking.”

from: Hybrid Working in the Scottish Government: Evidence Update (2024)
Produced by Corporate Analytical Services Team