Hybrid work improved employees’ work experience in a Swedish municipality, according to a longitudinal study by Umeå University that followed the same 148 white-collar workers between 2017 and 2023. Employees reported greater autonomy, better working conditions, more time to complete their tasks and more accessible managers after moving from office-based work to a combination of remote and on-site work.
The research, published in BMC Public Health in April 2026, provides a relatively rare comparison of employees’ experiences before and after the expansion of remote working during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Hybrid work improved autonomy and job satisfaction
Researchers analysed questionnaire responses collected in 2017 and again in 2023, around a year and a half after Sweden lifted its national recommendations to work from home.
The participants were employed by a medium-sized Swedish municipality and performed office-based administrative work. The study used the Work Experience Measurement Scale, which assesses different aspects of the psychosocial working environment.
The employees’ overall scores improved significantly between the two surveys. The strongest changes concerned supportive working conditions, autonomy, time management and leadership.
Participants were more likely to report that they enjoyed their jobs, could influence how they organised their work and had enough time to complete their duties during regular working hours. They also perceived their immediate managers as more available than they had before the pandemic.
Caroline Corneliuson, a doctoral student at Umeå University’s Department of Epidemiology and Global Health, said the availability of several digital communication channels may have made it easier for employees to contact their managers.
The university presented the findings as evidence that hybrid arrangements can support the psychosocial working environment when organisations provide appropriate working conditions.
Women reported the clearest improvement
The positive change was not distributed equally between women and men. Women reported a significant improvement in their work experience, while researchers found no corresponding change among male participants.
The study does not establish why the results differed by sex. The authors also urged caution because men represented a relatively small share of the sample and other personal or occupational factors may have influenced the responses.
The finding nevertheless adds a gender dimension that previous research on hybrid work has rarely identified. The researchers said further studies would be needed to determine whether the difference can be reproduced in larger and more diverse workplaces.
A digitally prepared organisation
The results cannot automatically be applied to all workplaces. The research examined one municipal organisation with relatively high digital maturity, where flexible working practices had already been introduced before the pandemic.
Between 2014 and 2017, most traditional offices in the organisation had been converted into activity-based workplaces. During the pandemic, employees could also request equipment for their home offices, including computer monitors, input devices and office chairs.
These conditions may have made the transition to hybrid work easier than it would be in organisations with limited digital infrastructure or jobs that cannot be performed remotely.
The study also relies on employees’ self-reported experiences. Other changes between 2017 and 2023, in addition to working location, may have influenced how participants assessed their workplace.
Remote work remains common in Sweden
Working from home has remained considerably more common in Sweden than it was before the pandemic. According to Statistics Sweden, about 46 percent of employed people aged between 20 and 64 worked from home to some extent in 2024, an increase of around 26 percentage points compared with 2008.
The debate over hybrid work has increasingly focused on how many days employees should spend in the office and whether remote arrangements weaken collaboration, workplace culture or the separation between professional and private life.
The Umeå researchers acknowledged these potential disadvantages. Previous studies have found that remote work can blur boundaries and increase conflicts between work and family responsibilities. Their findings suggest, however, that a well-supported hybrid model can also strengthen employees’ control over their work and their perception of management.
The study does not identify a universal model for dividing the working week between home and the office. It instead indicates that digital readiness, adequate equipment and established flexible practices may be central to whether hybrid work improves the workplace experience.
For Nordic employers and public administrations, the findings support continued experimentation rather than a uniform return to full-time office work. Larger studies will be needed to understand whether the improvements observed in this Swedish municipality extend to other sectors, occupational groups and countries.
