For the past few years, the conversation around the future of work has been dominated by one word: hybrid. It has been hailed as the great compromise—a post-pandemic solution that balances business needs with employee preferences. But according to Gary Bateman, Founder of the Mechanics of Business, hybrid isn’t the answer at all.
“Hybrid is simply a structure,” says Bateman. “The real differentiator is intentionality. The question we should be asking is not where people work, but why, when, and how.”
Bateman argues that the endless tug-of-war between remote and office work misses the real issue: many workplace systems were never purposefully designed in the first place.
“For decades we’ve been operating on default settings,” he explains. “Meetings happened in person because they always had. We mistook visibility for productivity. We rewarded long hours rather than meaningful outcomes. When Covid forced the world to shift, it didn’t create new problems—it revealed the cracks in how we were working all along.”
Companies thriving today are not the ones offering “work-from-home Fridays,” Bateman points out. Instead, they are the ones intentionally redesigning work.
“That means leaders must move away from tracking attendance and focus on driving performance,” he says. “It requires clear communication of goals, building trust that results matter more than hours spent, and creating deliberate systems for collaboration, culture, and connection.”
According to Bateman, culture in particular, cannot be left to chance. “Belonging, recognition, inclusion, and development should be the building blocks of an organisation’s operating system—not nice-to-haves when time allows.”
Physical offices, he notes, still have a role to play, but their use must be purposeful. “The office is not obsolete,” says Bateman. “But leaders must be clear about when being in the same room adds value and when it doesn’t.”
At its core, intentional work is about moving from legacy defaults to conscious design. It requires letting go of outdated binaries—remote versus in-person, flexibility versus accountability, productivity versus culture.
“Leaders need to ask themselves tough questions,” Bateman emphasises. “Are we measuring what actually matters? Are we designing work for equity and access? Are we creating environments where people can truly do their best work?”
He warns that companies who cling to old ways of working risk more than just disengagement—they risk irrelevance.
For South African companies competing for scarce skills in sectors like technology, finance, and creative industries, intentionality is fast becoming a business imperative.
“This is not just an HR adjustment or a short-term fix,” Bateman stresses. “It’s a strategic issue that affects performance, retention, innovation, and trust—the very foundations of sustainable growth.”
The bottom line, he says, is that while hybrid offers a framework, intentionality is the true differentiator. “The organisations that lead the next decade will not be those who ‘pick a side’ in the location debate. They will be the ones who deliberately design work with clarity, equity, and purpose. Those are the companies that will not only unlock flexibility but also resilience, performance, and growth.”
For more information, please visit http://mechanicsofbusiness.org