What They See Is What You Get

You cannot mandate your desired Image into existence.

For years, organizational leaders have debated where employees should work. Some favor returning to the office, others embrace remote work, and many have adopted Hybrid Work arrangements. But beneath the debate lies a more consequential question: Are these arrangements producing the organizational experience leaders actually intend?

A 2026 Federal Reserve Bank of New York study, Remote Work from the Office, found that nearly half of surveyed college-educated workers had no fully in-person meetings on their most recent office day. More than a third had participated in virtual meetings even when everyone involved was physically present in the same office. There’s nothing inherently wrong with virtual meetings. But bringing people together physically doesn’t guarantee meaningful collaboration. And when employees question the value of their office attendance, their experience can contradict the Culture their organization claims to cultivate. That contradiction has implications far beyond Hybrid Work.

The Image Behind the Policy

Every organization has an Image, shaped by how employees, customers, prospective talent, and other stakeholders perceive it. Formal communications influence those perceptions, but so do everyday experiences and the stories people share. In my recent Executive Brief, Design Your Image Before You’re Forced to Defend It, I introduced the importance of designing Image prospectively. Rather than waiting for reputational problems to emerge, leaders should anticipate the Image likely to arise from their intended Culture and reconcile it with the Image they strategically desire.

Consider an organization whose leaders intend to cultivate a Culture of trust, autonomy, accountability, and meaningful collaboration. They also want an employer Image that attracts exceptional talent and reflects genuine respect for employee judgment. Now suppose they’ve established a policy requiring employees to work in the office three days each week. The policy isn’t inherently inconsistent with their intentions.

But if employees routinely commute only to work independently or attend virtual meetings, they may interpret the arrangement as evidence that leadership values physical presence over meaningful contribution. Leadership might believe it’s reinforcing cohesion. Employees might perceive unnecessary control. The resulting Image Gap isn’t simply a communications problem. It’s an organizational design challenge.

Designing for Reconciliation

Culture-led Image Design provides a disciplined approach to addressing that challenge. It isn’t an ideological allegiance to Culture, nor does it presume employee preferences should invariably prevail. Culture is an intentional organizational design choice, informed by strategy.

In our hypothetical organization, let’s say leaders have already chosen a Culture-led approach. Within the DHARMA organizational design framework, Culture is the Post, the element held steadfast throughout the design process. They’ve also selected the Information element as their Lever, the element they will intentionally change. That selection is a design choice, not a requirement of Culture-led Organizational Design.

The Image element is a Balance, an element evaluated for alignment, reinforcement, and harmonization after the Lever is moved. This distinction is fundamental. Leaders aren’t attempting to change Image directly. They’re deliberately changing Information while holding Culture steadfast, then evaluating the consequences for Image.

Here’s what that looks like. Leaders redesign their People-Based Information System to enable tacit knowledge to flow effectively regardless of physical location. They invest in advanced video conferencing, effective virtual collaboration tools, and organizational support for productive home workspaces. At the same time, they intentionally create opportunities for purposeful, in-person collaboration. Employees come together to solve complex problems, develop ideas, strengthen relationships, and coordinate work that benefits from physical proximity. Colocation becomes a deliberate design choice rather than an attendance requirement. These are changes to the Information element. They are intentionally improving the Information design (the Lever) to evaluate what impact it has on the Image design (the Balance that’s in focus).

Consider the difference in employee experience. Before the redesign, employees might have complied with the Hybrid Work policy while privately questioning its value. They came to the office because they were required to, not necessarily because their presence contributed to meaningful outcomes. Leadership may have won the battle for attendance, but it was a Pyrrhic victory if the resulting employee experience undermined the organization’s desired Image.

Afterward, employees have the capabilities to work effectively wherever they are, and their time together has a clear purpose. They experience an organization that invests in their effectiveness, respects their judgment, and creates opportunities for meaningful collaboration. That experience can foster trust, engagement, and commitment. Employees carry those perceptions into conversations with friends, professional colleagues, and prospective recruits. Their stories begin reinforcing the employer Image leadership intended to cultivate—not because anyone instructed them to communicate differently, but because their experience has changed. The difference is clearly positive, but leaders continue to evaluate their design, using the help of current and/or potential employees. If consequential gaps remain, leaders revisit their Information design and evaluate the effects again.

Notice what hasn’t happened. Leaders haven’t tried to repair Image through messaging or begun by rewriting attendance requirements. Any resulting Hybrid Work policy is a byproduct of the organizational design, not its driving mechanism.

Beyond Hybrid Work

The strategic consequences extend well beyond office attendance. In my Training Magazine article, Hybrid Work, Proximity Bias, and the New Competition for Talent, I explored how workplace arrangements influence employee opportunity and an organization’s ability to compete for talent. An organization that promotes autonomy while rewarding physical visibility risks undermining its credibility. One that celebrates collaboration while creating barriers to it may weaken a capability it intends to strengthen.

These contradictions cannot be resolved through better employer branding. They require leaders to examine the organizational arrangements producing the experience. And that examination begins with the frame leaders bring to the challenge.

Before You Rewrite Your Policies

Most organizations already have Hybrid Work policies. Before revisiting yours, examine the assumptions behind them. What Culture are you trying to cultivate? What Image do you want employees, customers, and other external stakeholders to associate with your organization? Are you treating organizational objectives and employee expectations as competing interests, or as opportunities for mutual reinforcement?

Challenge your leadership team to identify one potential contradiction between your intended Culture and the employee experience your current arrangements are likely to produce. Then consider what you could redesign—not merely mandate—to reconcile that difference.

Before you rewrite your policies, consider rewriting your mental frame. The way leaders frame a challenge determines the solutions they’re willing to consider. When Hybrid Work becomes a contest between organizational interests and employee expectations, even a carefully negotiated compromise can leave both sides dissatisfied. But when leaders begin with the conviction that organizational performance and employee well-being can reinforce one another, a different set of design possibilities emerges.

Culture-led Image Design challenges leaders to pursue those possibilities deliberately, reconciling the Culture they intend to cultivate with the Image they want stakeholders to perceive. The objective isn’t simply to align competing interests. It’s to create conditions in which employees thrive, stakeholders benefit, and the organization sustains a strategic advantage. Organizational harmony is designed, not decreed.