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Improving hybrid working in social work practice

Use this tool to review your team's hybrid working arrangements and to develop an improvement plan.

Contents on this page

What hybrid working means

Hybrid working is when an organisation supports a combination of remote working and working in the office. It is often used to include ‘flexible working,’ which describes the days and hours people are contracted to work.

Local authorities (LAs) usually required employees to work from the office until COVID-19 happened. Lockdown conditions meant that many people had to work fully remotely or in a hybrid arrangement. This involved some of them working part of the time from home and part of the time from the office. Many LAs continue to use hybrid arrangements. It is an increasingly popular method of organising the workforce for many organisations.

Local leadership approaches and attitudes to team support and learning are important to effective hybrid working. Other important factors include how decisions are made around office space, personal practitioner requirements, and how hybrid working can support recruitment and retention. Currently, many employers have informal hybrid working arrangements in place and strategic approaches are in the early stages of development.

Who this self-assessment tool is for

This self-assessment tool can be used by anyone working within children’s social care. Effective hybrid working relies on a whole system approach and so requires input from:

• front-line practitioners
• supervisors, managers and leaders
• business partners including human resources (HR), estates and facilities, information technology (IT), learning and development and finance

This self-assessment is likely to be owned and coordinated by a senior leader with input from a range of these colleagues. This should include the voices and views of children and families.

It is important to develop a better understanding of current practice to benchmark against learning and effective practice from other sectors. This will help to ensure organisations are in the best place to be attractive to and meet the needs of both existing and new members of the workforce.

How to use this resource

This resource describes the 9 conditions which support effective hybrid working and a set of questions to self-assess your hybrid working arrangements. These come from the insights of a wide range of practitioners, managers and leaders from different local authorities. During the assessment you may identify more conditions which are important to your context, or questions that you had not thought about before.

Take time to collate and analyse the information you need to develop your plan. The questions should prompt discussion in your organisation and reflection about your practice context and workforce. Ensure that children and families, local contexts and individual practitioner needs are the most important considerations.

As you work through each of the 9 areas, you will identify actions and next steps.

1. Understand your local hybrid working arrangements

Local arrangements for hybrid working are often informal and can vary. In some cases, informal arrangements have been in place for some time and have become custom and usual practice.

Reasons for this might include:

• a lack of guidance about how corporate policies could or should apply in children’s social care
• arrangements possibly having been agreed in response to team circumstances or individual flexible working arrangements
• hybrid working arrangements having not been recently reviewed

A clear rationale and transparent approach to decision-making about hybrid working arrangements is important in creating a sense of fairness and equity. This supports workforce stability and sufficient staff capacity across the service.

Self-assessment: local arrangements

Think about:

• how well you understand the details of hybrid arrangements in your services
• how you provide an understanding of the dependencies (For example, share the rationale for decision-making, and the types of agreement)
• the processes that are in place to consider new requests for hybrid working in children’s social care
• how easy it is for everyone to understand how hybrid working arrangements are requested and agreed

2. Create a stable workforce with strong relationships

Hybrid working and flexible working can be crucial tools to support workforce wellbeing. However, not having enough people available to meet demand can make them difficult to achieve. This is particularly relevant in small, specialist teams or where there is a duty rota. This can lead to feelings of inequity among the wider staff group.

A stable workforce is central to developing and sustaining relationships between colleagues and crucial in ensuring peer support and wellbeing.

Self-assessment: workforce stability

Think about:

• what arrangements you have in place to review hybrid working arrangements when there are staff changes or agency workers in post, to ensure staff capacity is sufficient
• how well practitioners know each other and have the confidence and empathy to reach out to each other and to managers when hybrid working arrangements are impacting on capacity
• if you understand the right number of people needed for effective service delivery while meeting hybrid working requests

3. Manage hybrid working teams effectively

Effective hybrid practice involves working in virtual work spaces and in person. This relies on how well supervisors and managers:

• know and understand individual team member needs
• proactively manage the whole team
• advocate for the team to the service and organisation
• create a culture to ensure this can all happen safely

Supervision in a virtual work space requires different skills for the supervisor and the supervisee than in-person supervision. Developing and practising skills in working digitally is essential to ensure that staff needs are seen and recognised. This is when they are working remotely as well as in the office.

Self-assessment: supporting staff in a virtual workspace

Think about what:

• specific systems and structures are in place to enable leaders at all levels to be ‘present’ in the virtual workplace
• specific support is available to managers and supervisors to do this
• additional training and support might be needed to build confidence and skill in working in virtual spaces (this is relevant to the whole workforce, not just social workers and supervisors)

4. Support practitioners to develop skills to self-manage

Effective hybrid practice relies on practitioners being able to manage and direct their own work. Social workers should seek the support of managers to ensure workloads and wellbeing are not overwhelming.

Self-assessment: supporting staff to develop self-management skills

Think about:

• if you know how well managers understand and know each person they supervise, and how confident each supervisee would be to raise issues with their supervisor
• how the organisation or supervisors would know and understand work pressures of hybrid working in the organisation (For example, is there a question about hybrid working in the staff survey, or in routine questions asked in supervision)
• what other support and systems might need to be in place to enable managers and supervisors to navigate hybrid working successfully

5. Create flexible workspaces

Corporate decisions about changes to office space can impact on the ability of social work teams to work and learn together, particularly if hot desking is used. Corporate and organisational arrangements do not always consider the diverse needs of the children’s social care workforce.

Self-assessment: flexible workspaces

Think about:

• what arrangements are in place for children’s social care teams to work together (as a whole team, in smaller groups, on an individual basis) and how easy are they to arrange
• what assumptions are made about home working spaces
• if workspace arrangements match individual needs of the team and particular practice requirements
• how well workspace arrangements support relational practice approaches
• if there are opportunities and resources to expand team workspaces to community spaces
• how are practitioners, children and families involved in co-design when planning space requirements

6. Use digital systems that support hybrid working

Effective and efficient digital systems and infrastructure are critical to making hybrid working arrangements work well.

Self-assessment: digital systems and infrastructure

Think about:

• how well the organisation maps and addresses the pain points and individual needs for social work practitioners, children and families
• if there are children’s service design principles in place to guide digital systems development in children’s social care that support hybrid working and general practice

7. Encourage digital confidence in practitioners

Relational practice requires new and different skills as well as adapting relational skills, to be effective when hybrid working arrangements are in place. Hybrid working success is often based on meeting organisational need and monitoring workforce wellbeing.

Little is known about how hybrid working is influencing outcomes and impact for children and families.

This might include the:

• impact of different spaces to work in
• type and range of digital tools available for practitioners to use
• times at which social work happens

This is more than understanding how to use digital tools and software. It’s about understanding the practitioner’s relationship with digital tools and technology, and professional confidence in using them for digital practice. Digital working can influence communication, trust, power and social justice.

Practitioners and supervisors should understand the skills and knowledge needed to sustain relationships when working digitally. They should be supported to develop skills in moving seamlessly between digital and in-person practice.

Self-assessment: encouraging digital confidence

Think about how the organisation:

• maps the digital skills of the whole workforce and supports them in improving digital skills and confidence
• understands the skills and competence needed for a relational practice when working digitally
• assesses the quality of practice when working digitally with children and families
• supports children, young people and families to work with practitioners in digital spaces

8. Ensure effective quality assurance and evaluation systems

The success of hybrid working is often measured by how well it works for organisations, often using staff wellbeing surveys and monitoring hybrid working and flexible working arrangements. Most evaluation systems do not consider the impact of hybrid working on outcomes for children and families. This is an important consideration, as we do not yet know the long-term impact of hybrid working on service delivery.

You might want to think about the:

• choices available to families about whether they meet with their worker digitally or in-person
• mix and range of digital tools available to staff
• times at which social work happens
• digital infrastructure available to the family (including devices, broadband and digital skills)

Self-assessment: evaluating the impact of hybrid working

Think about:

• how you would assess the quality of relational practice when hybrid working arrangements are in place - for example, are arrangements transparent, are standards of practice measured for digital working and is staff confidence assessed
• if existing tools and surveys aimed at understanding performance and wellbeing include a focus on the effect of hybrid working
• if the metrics used to capture outcomes and impact of practice are specific enough to understand the effect of hybrid working
• if you have specific metrics to help you understand the effect of hybrid working which have been co-produced with children, families and carers

9. Support a culture that encourages trust

One of the most challenging features of hybrid working is that there is less time for people to be in the same place at the same time. Practitioners and managers can be ‘out of sight’ for significant amounts of time. Being ‘out of sight’ can have negative effects, such as creating uncertainty, mistrust and anxiety. A strong culture which supports trust, develops professional identity and focuses on relationships, is essential to:

• maintain relationships
• improve practice
• recognise when the workforce needs more support

Self-assessment: sustaining a positive culture

Think about:

• if there are clear statements from leaders describing the relational culture the organisation is working towards, and the behaviours associated with it
• if these statements explore the relative values of virtual and face-to-face working where digital practice is integral to working with children and families
• how well new practitioners or early career social workers understand the systems in place to support professional identity, autonomous decision-making and psychological safety

Understand the benefits and challenges of hybrid working

Benefits

Hybrid working can potentially be more efficient and productive. Being away from the office and other distractions provides focused time to complete reports, recording, and other tasks more efficiently.

Hybrid working can enable better work-life balance and has strong links to wellbeing. Benefits include:

• improved efficiency and productivity
• better work-life balance
• increased sense of trust and autonomy
• cost savings from lower sickness levels, better recruitment and retention, reduced office space costs, and other indirect savings

Hybrid working provides greater flexibility for both families and professionals. This flexibility can encourage responsive practice and meet family needs, such as evening visits or video calls during lunch breaks.

Hybrid working encourages an increased focus on diversity and inclusion. Quieter environments help those using assistive technology, which often does not work well in open plan spaces. Flexible schedules can accommodate caregiving responsibilities.

Challenges

Supporting wellbeing and ensuring safety, individually and across the staff team, can be challenging. Being overwhelmed by back-to-back meetings, high email volume, and increasing long-distance travel can have a negative effect on wellbeing and effectiveness.

With hybrid working there can be:

• communication concerns, as hybrid working arrangements require communication to be more considered and less spontaneous
• greater reliance on the written word, leading to risks of misinterpretation and messages not being read
• interactions becoming impersonal more easily and workers feeling disconnected from the team and their work
• channel choices that create inequities, and online meetings that lead to ‘bad habits’ such as people leaving cameras off or working on emails while in meetings

If you're not physically in the office, this can raise questions about wellbeing, availability, productivity, and the risk of perceived unfairness.

Contextual pressures mean hybrid and flexible working arrangement are not always possible due to:

• staffing shortages
• out-of-area placements
• court requirements
• multi-agency collaboration

Finally, a feeling of ‘missing out’ is commonly cited as a source of anxiety around hybrid working. This feeling includes missing signs of stress in colleagues and informal opportunities to connect. There are longer-term concerns about the unknown effect of hybrid working on organisations and on the children and families they work with.

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These resources have been developed by Research in Practice in collaboration with DfE.
Published: 24 September 2025
Last updated: 24 September 2025