Remote and Hybrid Work What Everyone Needs to Know®

In Remote and Hybrid Work: What Everyone Needs to Know®, long-time remote work scholar and consultant Barbara Z. Larson provides an accessible and critical resource for understanding the remote and virtual workplace, and how to lead in this new work environment.

Remote and hybrid work have become defining features of the twenty-first century workplace, and affect almost all of us, including those who work daily in the office. As many people discover the benefits and challenges of working from home, co-workers are contending with emptier offices and virtual teams, managers are learning how to lead from a distance, and businesses and governments are working through the policy implications of a new model of work.

In Remote and Hybrid Work: What Everyone Needs to Know®, Barbara Z. Larson addresses key questions regarding the contemporary workplace: what is the difference between virtual work and remote work? How common is remote work, and what changed due to the COVID-19 pandemic? Is there a particular type of person who is better suited for remote work? What are the effects of using technology to monitor remote workers? What are the societal benefits and costs of remote work? What has happened to companies that have tried to go fully remote, with no offices at all?

Larson looks carefully into the challenges and opportunities that people and companies face today as work changes. Chapters address the issues that vital stakeholders experience in remote-work environments, including the remote worker, remote teams, managers of remote workers, and companies with remote workforces. Larson also incorporates real-world examples to illustrate key points and demonstrate best practices. Readers will learn from more than thirty years of extensive research by scholars in the areas of applied psychology, organizational behavior, computer-mediated communication, and organizational economics. Remote and Hybrid Work: What Everyone Needs to Know® is a critical resource for understanding this new model of work.

Barbara Z. Larson is Executive Professor of Management at Northeastern University's D'Amore-McKim School of Business, where she has been a member of faculty since 2012. Larson's research focuses on the personal and interpersonal skills that people need to work effectively in remote and hybrid work environments, and she works with collaborators in both academia and industry to develop training methods and materials to enable more productive virtual and remote work. Her research has been published in Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Perspectives, and Management Science, among other outlets. She is a contributor at Harvard Business Review, and her work and insights have been cited by The New York Times, USA Today, NBC, BBC, and Bloomberg. Prior to her academic career, Larson worked for 15 years in international finance and operations leadership, most recently as Director of International Finance at R.R. Donnelley.