Authors: Assistant Professor Pushpa Prajapati, Professor Dr. Shweta Bhatia
Abstract: Transitions in spatial, technological, organisational strategies and employer-employee experiences have disintegrated the organisational systems post pandemic. This narrative review synthesises extant literature to highlight frictions caused by the factors of hybrid work flexibility and focuses on building a fluid hybrid work ecosystem that can overcome the headless chicken zig-zag shuttling and firefighting instincts. A narrative review approach was necessary to capture radically fragmented and diversified nuances of hybrid work and provide a single integrated seamless architecture of a hybrid work ecosystem, not synthesised previously. This narrative review was based on wide verifiable reference base as against a narrow exhaustive literature through replicable search protocol or formal quality appraisal. Targeted searches identified peer-reviewed journals and practitioner gray literature published between 2019 to 2026 reporting accelerated implementation and adoption of hybrid work. A prominent indication of the review is that hybrid work frictions originate from multidimensional causes. Resource allocation and availability at multi-locations, technological gaps, unclear policies and psychological burdens compound and produce a cumulative friction on both the employer and the employee and when addressed in isolation fails to provide flawless hybrid work ecosystem. These findings do corroborate with gray literature reports on practitioner scale. The findings are highly illustrative and provide a conceptual thematisation which should not be treated as an evidence map but used as a precursory guide for future systematic and empirical studies. This study is the first of its kind to integrate the fragmentated and diverging aspects of various hybrid work frictions, proposing an integrated hybrid work ecosystem that balances boundary spanning, technology, organisational reforms and psychological obstructions that informs sustainable organisational designs and future interdisciplinary research.
