Recently, Ctrip Group said that it launched a "3+2" hybrid office model, allowing its employees to work remotely from home every Wednesday and Friday from March. It is also the first enterprise in China to take the lead in launching the "hybrid office" model.
After the news was sent, it triggered a wide range of discussions on the Internet, many netizens have said, "How can I let my boss see", the topic #Is it feasible to work from home for two days a week# has also appeared on Weibo hot search.
So, what kind of model is the "3+2" office model, and will it become a trend in the future? What benefits will the promotion of the hybrid office model bring to the tourism industry?
The author | can be
What is the "3+2" hybrid office model?
According to Ctrip, the so-called "3+2" hybrid office model, that is, 5 working days a week, every Wednesday and Friday can work remotely from home. The work will cover 30,000 employees of Ctrip Group, regardless of gender, duty, or salary adjustment.
After the news was announced, it triggered a lot of discussion, many netizens expressed their liking for this work model, and some netizens lamented that "extraordinary moves" under the epidemic have become the norm.
In fact, telecommuting is not an emerging product. With the maturity of remote conferencing and collaborative work software in Internet technology, coupled with the impact of the new crown epidemic, a trend of remote work has been set off around the world in the past two years.
Because China's epidemic prevention and control policy is precise and effective, and the traditional working mode of the office has been restored very early, remote work is more like an "extraordinary move" under the epidemic, far less popular than the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and other places.
Liang Jianzhang has posted that in the United States, the number of enterprises with employees working from home has increased rapidly, and as of the time of his QJE paper published in 2013, the proportion of people who adopt the home-based model in the overall labor force has tripled in 30 years, from 0.75% in 1980 to 2.4% in 2010.
The article pointed out that in 2017, more than 80% of companies in the United States introduced a remote work system, and 30 million people have worked remotely from home, accounting for 16%-19% of the working population in the United States. 24% of companies worldwide, especially technology companies, use telecommuting.
Since the global outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, there has been no shortage of well-known companies around the world that have announced flexible working. According to relevant media reports, in May 2021, Sundar Pichai, CEO of technology giant Google, said in an email to all Google employees that Google will conduct a mixed work week, office work and remote work in parallel, and it is expected that about 60% of employees will have three days a week in the office, and 20% of employees will work from home permanently.
In June 2021, some media disclosed that Apple announced a mixed work schedule, starting in September, employees will return to the office to work three days a week, which is a shift to normal business operations after the epidemic forced employees to work from home for a long time. Apple employees then issued an open letter asking Apple CEO Tim Cook to re-evaluate the mixed model. The model will require Apple employees to return to the office three days a week, starting in early September. Many employees said they would resign if Apple did not change its hardline stance.
In addition, related reports include Microsoft's statement that it will allow employees to work from home permanently, Facebook allows specific employees to work remotely and full-time, Amazon allows employees to work remotely two days a week, Twitter allows some employees to work from home permanently...
Why promote the "3+2" hybrid office model?
It can be seen that the "3+2" hybrid office model is not Ctrip's "head-patting" move. In fact, before announcing the launch of the model this time, Ctrip had already conducted experiments many times.
As early as the end of 2010, 249 customer service personnel from Ctrip's two departments participated in the randomized experimental design of the project for 9 months, and the employees who participated in the trial would work from home four times a week, and the fifth shift would be transferred to the office.
The findings showed a significant increase in the performance of workers working from home, increasing by 13 percent over nine months: 9 percent of them were due to an increase in working hours due to a reduction in sick leave, and 4 percent from a quiet work environment that led to an increase in productivity.
In August last year, Ctrip Group announced the launch of the "2021 Hybrid Office Trial". The trial will be attended by two control groups, totaling hundreds of employees. When introducing the results of the "2021 Mixed Office Experiment", Liang Jianzhang said: "The effect of the experiment is obvious, and the turnover rate of our employees has dropped by 1/3, which is of great help to the company's overall labor costs."
In recent years, with the continuous rise of rents around urban offices, the cost of rent and commuting costs for employees has also increased invisibly. Commuting time of 2 hours, 3 hours, and even more not only greatly affects the labor efficiency of employees, but even crushes the last feather of the workers. After the feasibility of "working from home" is promoted, the work efficiency and enthusiasm of workers may be greatly improved.
As a demographer, Liang Jianzhang has been committed to studying China's demographics in recent years, and from time to time has been on the hot search for his population remarks. In view of the "3+2" hybrid office model promoted by Ctrip, Liang Jianzhang also gave an explanation from the direction of population.
Liang Jianzhang said that the promotion of the mixed office system is a win-win situation for enterprises, employees and society. The hybrid office model allows employees to spend more time with their families and children. "If everyone had more time with their families and children, it might also be helpful for fertility rates."
For now, the hybrid office model seems to be of great benefit to enterprises, employees, and society, so will the hybrid office model become a global trend in the future? And what opportunities will this office model bring to the tourism industry?
Can the "3+2" hybrid office model be promoted in a large area?
From the enterprises mentioned above, it is not difficult to find that the global enterprises that have implemented flexible office in the past are basically Internet companies. Ctrip Group, which proposed the "3+2" hybrid office model this time, is also an online travel service company.
Compared with the office space of Internet enterprises, it is relatively flexible, and compared with the requirements of traditional manufacturing enterprises, it is relatively dependent on the requirements of office space. Wu Liyun, associate professor of the China Culture and Tourism Industry Research Institute of Beijing Second Chinese University, told Fenghuang Travel that in the long term in the future, the "3+2" hybrid office model will become a trend, but the model is not suitable for all industries, such as medical, hotel and other production-oriented industries.
Xiao Yuanshan, a cultural tourism expert and a special researcher of the Phoenix Cultural Tourism Think Tank, believes that "the 'employment system' has no future, but not everyone will start a business, flexible employment or self-employment between entrepreneurship and part-time work will become the norm, and 3+2 is a transitional state of self-employment." ”
But it is undeniable that the promotion of the "3+2" hybrid office model has given employees 2 more days of discretionary time per week. This is undoubtedly a positive for the tourism industry.
Xiao Yuanshan believes that the promotion of the "3+2" hybrid office model is definitely good for the tourism industry as a whole. Although the total workload has not decreased, after deducting commuting and other time, employees can only have more rest time at their disposal, and the demand for peripheral travel will increase. In addition, as teams work together fewer days, the need for in-depth communication and relationship building increases, as does the need for corporate team building and welfare travel.
In Wu Liyun's view, after the popularization of the "3+2" hybrid office model, it is equivalent to enlarging the resource pool of the tourism industry a lot. This means that more tourism consumption potential will be stimulated and the tourism consumption potential will be released. If the volume of this model is large enough, it may affect the development of hotel resort products. Because more people will work while taking a vacation, these people will have higher requirements for the hotel's related supporting facilities.
In addition, Liang Jianzhang also believes that the mixed office model also has a certain pulling effect on the tourism industry. "It reduces commuting. But if we have more companies to hire workers, not necessarily in the central city, may live in the surrounding cities, that is for hotels or even train tickets, staying farther, for the plane tickets are helpful. If you don't go back one day of the week and stay in the city, it will also help the hotel. ”
Although many people currently embrace the "3 + 2" hybrid office model, some netizens are still worried that even if the model saves time costs and rental costs, working from home will blur the boundaries between work and life, and it is inevitable that they will be forced to extend overtime hours, and even extreme situations of opening their eyes and starting to work. Therefore, the "beautiful looking" mixed office model still has a long way to go in defining the rules.