and FM contracts are paying the price

Hybrid working is no longer a fringe arrangement in the UK. It’s embedded.

ONS data shows 28% of working adults in Great Britain hybrid worked between January–March 2025, and the pattern has been rising since 2022.

But as more organisations try to “tighten” hybrid, a familiar storyline is playing out:

• Leadership publishes a policy

• HR circulates a memo

• Someone buys an attendance dashboard

• Compliance stays inconsistent

• The workplace experience (and FM performance) takes the blame

The uncomfortable truth: hybrid policies rarely fail because data is fragmented.
They fail because the policy was never designed to be operated or enforced across people, space, and service contracts.

Hybrid isn’t just a people policy – it’s a building operating model

Several trends underline why this matters for FM leaders:

Hybrid is widespread but not evenly distributed

ONS finds hybrid work is far more common among higher earners and higher qualifications for example, 45% of workers earning £50,000+ hybrid worked, compared with 8% under £20,000 (Jan–Mar 2025).

That disparity affects:

• how often buildings are used

• when peak loads occur

• what “good service” looks like in different sites

Occupancy assumptions have shifted

The British Council for Offices (BCO) says the UK’s old 80% utilisation benchmark no longer holds and points instead to a more realistic ~66% utilisation rate in its post-pandemic utilisation review.

For FM, that’s huge: many contracts, schedules, asset strategies, and cleaning specs were built for a different reality.

The enforcement gap: where hybrid policies actually break

1) Policy without process becomes a wish list

Most policies answer “what” (days in office) but not “how”:

• Who approves exceptions?

• Who arbitrates when teams disagree?

• What happens when utilisation spikes but service hours don’t?

Without that operating layer, policy becomes optional.

2) Attendance tracking isn’t outcomes management

Many organisations track presence but that’s not the same as measuring whether hybrid is delivering what leadership claims it should.

CBRE’s 2024 workplace benchmarking notes that among organisations requiring office days, around 60% track attendance, primarily via security badging, and 90% use badging as a utilisation data source (with other methods like reservations also common).

That’s useful data — but it doesn’t answer:

• Are teams collaborating better?

• Are service levels stable on peak days?

• Are we paying for capacity we don’t use?

3) “Flexibility” without decision rights creates conflict

A common failure mode is delegating hybrid rules to teams (“team agreements”) but not assigning decision rights when trade-offs appear.

When nobody can say “no,” the building ends up absorbing the consequences:

• overcrowded peak days

• under-used midweek days

• inconsistent service demand

• constant complaints about “standards slipping”

4) The most ignored point: hybrid changes contractual scope

CIPD highlights that hybrid working is widely in place (its July 2025 report notes 74% of organisations say they have hybrid working in place).

But most FM contracts were not rewritten for:

• fluctuating occupancy

• variable service intensity

• new space types (collaboration zones, desk booking, event-style peaks)

• demand-led cleaning, catering, security cover, reception flow

So when the workplace experience deteriorates, the provider gets blamed even though the contract pricing model may be structurally misaligned.

The pricing problem: you can’t run variable demand on fixed assumptions

Hybrid creates a cost reality many organisations try to ignore:

• Peak-day service demand rises (washrooms, waste, catering, meeting rooms, security)

• Idle-day capacity still costs money (baseline staffing, plant, compliance, fixed overheads)

If the budget stays flat while demand becomes volatile, one of two things happens:

1. Service breaks on peak days, or

2. Providers quietly de-scope, protect margin, and disputes multiply

This is why “attendance policing” often feels like the wrong conversation: it’s a symptom-management tactic, not an operating model redesign.

What good looks like:

the hybrid operating model test for FM leaders

If you want a hybrid policy that holds up in real buildings, pressure-test it with these questions:

1. What is the policy trying to achieve in measurable terms?
   (Collaboration? Retention? Training? Innovation? Customer response time?)

2. What are the “peak behaviours” the building must support?
   (All-hands days, project sprints, training blocks, client events)

3. Who owns space governance and who can say no?
   (Booking rules, exception handling, escalation route)

4. Have we baselined actual occupancy and demand patterns?
   Not what the policy says what the building experiences.

5. Do FM specs flex with utilisation or stay static?
   Cleaning frequencies, washroom checks, waste uplift, security posts.

6. Does the FM contract define hybrid-driven scope changes?
   What triggers a variation? What evidence is accepted? What’s the pricing method?

7. Are KPIs aligned to outcomes, not activity?
   For example: user experience scores + audit-ready evidence, not just “tasks completed”.

Mini example: how “fine on paper” becomes a service failure

A 3-day mandate lands.

Tuesday–Thursday become heavy occupancy. Monday and Friday remain light.

The cleaning spec is still built around evenly spread usage.
Catering staffing is still built around predictable headcount.
Security cover is still built around a static post model.

Within 6–8 weeks:

• complaints cluster on peak days

• meeting rooms become a flashpoint

• washrooms and waste become visible failure points

• the contract review turns into KPI warfare

None of this is “a data alignment issue.” It’s a design and commercial model issue.

What this means for FM Talk readers and procurement teams

Hybrid is forcing a reset in three places:

1. Space planning assumptions (BCO’s utilisation shift is a warning signal)

2. Workplace governance (decision rights, exceptions, escalation)

3. FM contracting (scope definition, flex mechanisms, pricing logic)

Organisations that solve (3) early will spend less time fighting (1) and (2) later.

FAQ

What is the biggest reason hybrid working policies fail?

Because organisations publish a policy but don’t design an operating model for enforcement including decision rights, processes, and how space and FM services will be governed.

Is attendance tracking the solution to hybrid working?

Attendance tracking can provide utilisation data, but it doesn’t measure whether hybrid is delivering outcomes like collaboration or productivity, and it doesn’t fix contracts that weren’t priced for variable demand.

How common is hybrid working in Great Britain?

ONS reports that 28% of working adults in Great Britain hybrid worked between January and March 2025.

What has changed about UK office utilisation since the pandemic?

BCO research says office occupancy has shifted away from the long-standing 80% benchmark toward a more realistic utilisation rate of around 66%.

Why do FM contracts struggle under hybrid working?

Most contracts were designed for predictable occupancy. Hybrid creates volatile peak demand, which affects cleaning, catering, security, reception, and user experience but the commercial model often remains fixed.

What should an FM team do first to stabilise hybrid service delivery?

Baseline actual occupancy and demand patterns, then re-align service specifications and contract mechanisms (variation triggers, pricing logic, and KPIs) to match the hybrid reality.

Where EMC can help

Hybrid working is now a commercial and operational FM issue, not just a cultural one.

EMC can support organisations by:

• Baselining utilisation and service demand (so decisions are evidence-led, not opinion-led)

• Reviewing FM scopes and specs to identify where hybrid has created hidden gaps or over-servicing

• Repricing and re-structuring contracts to reflect variable demand (and reduce disputes)

• Benchmarking and tender support where hybrid has made legacy contracts unfit for purpose

• Mobilisation planning to reset governance, decision rights, reporting, and performance frameworks

If you’re within 90 days of changing your hybrid policy (or re-tendering workplace services), do the operating model and contract work first because once service failure becomes visible, every fix costs more.