A few days each week, Becky Whitham takes her two young children to and from school. As the Director of Strategy and Operations, Advancement, at University College London, she’s grateful for the flexibility to take short bits of time out of her busy workday to do school runs.

Whitham credits the hybrid work model adopted by the U.K. university in recent years with providing her and her co-workers the flexibility to work both from home and on campus. That model of working, she says, allows her to be better focused on and present for her job as well as her personal life.

“The pandemic proved to the world that people will continue to do their jobs at home and do them well,” Whitham says. “And I think we’re all better for it.”

As students, faculty, and staff began to return to campuses around the world in 2021, UCL brought staff back in an interim hybrid model in which employees were expected to work at least 40% of their time on-site. Early in 2022, after a series of listening sessions, university administrators reviewed the arrangement and issued new guidance that allowed for three categories of workers: on-site first (working more than 80% of time on-site); hybrid worker (working between 20% and 80% of time on-site, using an activity-led approach rather than a strict percentage baseline); and remote first (working less than 20% of time on-site).

“Having a university-approved framework is really helpful,” says Whitham. “That empowers departments to learn from one another with enough flexibility to institute what works best for different teams and individuals.”