New research compares well-being, connection, and retention across remote, hybrid, and onsite work
Hybrid work has been treated for years as the happy medium, all the flexibility of remote work, all the connection of the office. But a new peer-reviewed study out of the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston puts that assumption to the test, at least when it comes to employee well-being.
Researchers analyzed survey responses from 7,704 employees at the healthcare system, split across remote, hybrid, and onsite environments. Fully remote employees reported the highest well-being, at an average score of 4.22 out of 5. Hybrid employees came in at 4.12, and onsite employees trailed at 3.89, according to the study, published in July 2026.
The findings arrive amid a wave of return-to-office mandates reshaping American workplaces, and they challenge the common assumption that hybrid work offers the best balance for employee well-being. The study didn't examine productivity, so it doesn't settle the broader case for hybrid work, only how employees feel.
Why remote workers report feeling better
Dr. Stefanie Johnson, professor of organizational leadership at the University of Colorado Boulder's Leeds School of Business and co-author of the study, said the well-being differences weren't something the researchers measured directly, but she pointed to autonomy as the likely driver, based on other research in the field.
"Having control over when, where, how you do things tends to be positively related to well-being," Johnson said. "It's flexibility over your ability to manage your home life and your work life."
"There's a lot of hassles that come with going into the office, fighting traffic, finding parking, buying lunch, all those little things I think might wear people down," she said.
Johnson also pointed to something less tangible than logistics.
"There's a feeling of trust when your organization lets you work remotely, like you feel they must trust me," she said.
The connection argument doesn't hold up
Return-to-office mandates are often justified by fear that remote employees feel cut off from colleagues. The study found little support for that. Employees across all three groups described their culture in similarly positive terms, and remote employees used connection words at a slightly higher rate, though not significantly so.
Dr. Courtney Holladay, vice president and chief learning officer at UT MD Anderson in Houston and co-author of the study, explained why.
"Physical presence doesn't equal connection," Holladay said. "There has to be an intentionality around, 'am I trying to connect with this individual? What am I doing in the conversation? What am I doing when I interact with them?'"
Johnson admitted her own instincts initially ran the other way.
"I didn't personally grow up with online connections. I don't think I could connect with people I'd never met in person," she said. "But I've heard a lot of research and anecdotes from people who only had the chance to connect virtually. During the pandemic, it was made very clear that this can happen."
"People can be more authentic when they're remote," Johnson added. "You can be your true self because you're sitting in your home. You don't feel like you have to conform to a work environment."
This finding connects to earlier reporting HRD America has done on how remote work affects employees' mental health and social lives. This study narrows the question to something simpler: do people still feel tied to their organization's culture? On that measure, location made little difference.
What this means for return-to-office decisions
Turnover followed a similar pattern, the study found, with fully remote employees leaving at the lowest rate, 7.8% within a year of the survey, compared with 8.8% for those onsite. Location alone wasn't what predicted retention, though. Well-being was.
"You're not going to be absent if you have higher well-being," Johnson said. "You're not going to quit. You may have better performance."
Despite these outcomes, remote work remains far from the norm. Only about 13% of full-time employees work fully remote today, compared with 26% hybrid and 61% fully onsite, according to WFH Research, a Stanford-affiliated initiative that tracks work arrangements. Organizations still weighing whether to let employees work fully remote are the ones driving the ongoing debate over whether full-time remote work is actually working out.
For companies that can't offer full flexibility, Johnson said employees can still benefit from smaller forms of autonomy.
"There's a lot of ways to allow autonomy over people's work: what things they work on, flexibility," she said. "Even if you're in the office, having flexibility on start and end time, so it's not nine to five, helps people integrate work with their life."
Holladay's advice for leaders weighing blanket return-to-office policies comes down to one word.
"I would really encourage intentionality," Holladay said. "As organizations consider a blanket return to work, you may find some employees coming in to sit on a Zoom call and do the same thing they could have done at home, and that can be very frustrating. It really has to be based on what's the function the employee needs to perform, what is the reason I need the individual to come into the office."
Training is one example. A highly interactive class held in person calls for everyone to be onsite, while breakout sessions held over Zoom don't require it.
"It really needs to be matched to what is the function and the reason," Holladay said. "Because employees, especially candidates now, are evaluating jobs based on whether it's going to match their life needs."
Asked what she'd want HR leaders to take from the research, Holladay pointed to what employees trade for a paycheck.
"Yes, we're paying them a salary to come to work, but they're also giving so much of themselves," she said. "So what are we doing to keep them whole and think about all we're giving back to them?"
