Remote and Hybrid Work After the Pandemic: A Narrative Review of HR Policy Design and Employee Outcomes
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.65150/EP-jmrr/V2E8/2026-13Keywords:
remote work, hybrid work, human resource management, narrative review, employee wellbeing, performance management, flexible workingAbstract
The mass adoption of remote and hybrid work following the COVID-19 pandemic has generated a large and fragmented body of research spanning human resource management, organisational psychology, and labour economics. This narrative review synthesises the published evidence on how remote work policy design shapes employee productivity, engagement, wellbeing, and retention. Drawing on peer-reviewed studies published between 2015 and 2024, the review organises the literature around four policy dimensions: scheduling flexibility, performance management approach, communication structure, and wellbeing safeguards. Across studies, the evidence indicates that outcomes depend less on the presence of remote work than on how it is governed: autonomy-supportive scheduling and outcome-based evaluation are consistently associated with positive outcomes, whereas surveillance-heavy monitoring and unstructured communication are associated with distrust, burnout, and turnover intention. The review identifies persistent gaps — including a shortage of longitudinal designs, limited evidence from small and medium enterprises, and under-representation of non-Western contexts — and proposes an agenda for future research alongside evidence-based recommendations for HR practitioners designing durable hybrid work frameworks.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Syed Fatima Hussain, Mehmoona Akram , Raja Muneeb Anwar (Author)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
