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    "id": "f7926808-868b-4f87-8bb1-ce68d77e0b7f",
    "name": "Should this role be remote, hybrid, or on-site?",
    "public_slug": "ops-workplace-model",
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    "description": "Determine the most appropriate workplace model for a team or individual role, covering the full spectrum from fully on-site through to fully remote. Use this tree when onboarding a new role, reviewing an existing team's working arrangements, or responding to a staff request for a change in working pattern. A structured approach ensures decisions are consistent, fair, and grounded in genuine operational requirements rather than habit or personal preference.",
    "mode": "decision",
    "entry": "Q1",
    "tags": [
      "operations",
      "remote work",
      "hybrid working",
      "people operations",
      "facilities"
    ],
    "image": "https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1497366216548-37526070297c?w=1200&q=80"
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  "questions": [
    {
      "id": "Q1",
      "text": "Is the role primarily client-facing, requiring regular in-person presence with external customers, clients, or stakeholders?"
    },
    {
      "id": "Q2",
      "text": "Does the role require intensive, real-time collaboration with colleagues — such as paired working, hands-on training delivery, or participation in frequent synchronous creative or problem-solving sessions?"
    },
    {
      "id": "Q3",
      "text": "Can the individual consistently access a suitable home working environment — including reliable high-speed internet, a private and quiet workspace, and appropriate data security conditions?"
    },
    {
      "id": "Q4",
      "text": "Is the role at a senior level — for example, a team lead, manager, head of department, or above — where visibility, mentoring, and cultural leadership are part of the role's responsibilities?"
    },
    {
      "id": "Q5",
      "text": "Is the team distributed across multiple time zones — with colleagues or key stakeholders located more than three hours' time difference away on a regular basis — creating genuine ambiguity about which model best serves the senior role?"
    },
    {
      "id": "Q6",
      "text": "Is the team distributed across multiple time zones, with colleagues or key stakeholders located more than three hours' time difference away on a regular basis?"
    }
  ],
  "outcomes": [
    {
      "id": "ONSITE_REQUIRED",
      "label": "Fully On-Site Required"
    },
    {
      "id": "HYBRID",
      "label": "Hybrid (2–3 Days Office)"
    },
    {
      "id": "FLEXIBLE_HYBRID",
      "label": "Flexible Hybrid (Ad-Hoc)"
    },
    {
      "id": "FULLY_REMOTE",
      "label": "Fully Remote Approved"
    },
    {
      "id": "CASE_BY_CASE",
      "label": "Requires Case-by-Case Manager Decision"
    }
  ],
  "dsl": "dag: Should this role be remote, hybrid, or on-site?\nversion: 1.0.0\nimage: https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1497366216548-37526070297c?w=1200&q=80\ndescription: Determine the most appropriate workplace model for a team or individual role, covering the full spectrum from fully on-site through to fully remote. Use this tree when onboarding a new role, reviewing an existing team's working arrangements, or responding to a staff request for a change in working pattern. A structured approach ensures decisions are consistent, fair, and grounded in genuine operational requirements rather than habit or personal preference.\ntags: operations, remote work, hybrid working, people operations, facilities\nentry: Q1\n\nQ1: Is the role primarily client-facing, requiring regular in-person presence with external customers, clients, or stakeholders?\n  hint: Client-facing roles include those where the value delivered depends materially on physical presence — for example, on-site account management, retail or branch operations, field service engineering, or face-to-face advisory services where clients explicitly expect or contract for in-person attendance. Video conferencing can substitute for some client interactions but cannot fully replace roles where physical presence is a contractual, regulatory, or relationship requirement. Review the role's job description and any client contracts or SLAs that specify attendance obligations before answering. If the role is client-facing for some but not all of its time, answer yes and use the outcome to establish the minimum on-site requirement, then assess flexibility for non-client days separately.\n  yes -> Q2\n  no  -> Q2\n\nQ2: Does the role require intensive, real-time collaboration with colleagues — such as paired working, hands-on training delivery, or participation in frequent synchronous creative or problem-solving sessions?\n  hint: Intensive collaboration means work that genuinely cannot be deferred, asynchronous, or replicated effectively via digital tools — for example, physical prototyping, real-time trading desk operations, live training delivery, or workshop facilitation where reading the room and spontaneous whiteboarding are essential. Many roles described as collaborative can in practice operate effectively with a mix of structured in-person sessions and asynchronous digital collaboration using tools such as Miro, Confluence, or Slack. Be specific about which tasks require co-location rather than applying a blanket characterisation — a role that has two intensive collaboration days per week and three largely independent days may be a strong hybrid candidate. Consult the team manager and existing team members before answering to get an accurate operational picture rather than an assumption.\n  yes -> Q3\n  no  -> Q3\n\nQ3: Can the individual consistently access a suitable home working environment — including reliable high-speed internet, a private and quiet workspace, and appropriate data security conditions?\n  hint: A suitable home working environment requires not just a desk and a laptop but also broadband sufficient for video calls and large file transfers, a space where confidential conversations cannot be overheard, and compliance with any data security requirements such as screen privacy, locked filing, and use of approved network access tools. Roles handling highly sensitive personal data, regulated financial information, or classified material may have additional home working requirements that must be confirmed with your IT Security and Data Protection teams before approving remote work. Where there is doubt, ask the individual to complete a home working assessment and have it reviewed by your Facilities or IT team. The presence of caring responsibilities, shared living arrangements, or inadequate connectivity should be treated as genuine operational constraints rather than personal lifestyle factors.\n  yes -> Q4\n  no  -> [ONSITE_REQUIRED]\n\nQ4: Is the role at a senior level — for example, a team lead, manager, head of department, or above — where visibility, mentoring, and cultural leadership are part of the role's responsibilities?\n  hint: Senior roles carry an often underestimated responsibility for culture, team cohesion, and informal mentoring that is disproportionately impacted by remote working — junior staff benefit significantly from observational learning and informal access to senior colleagues that is difficult to replicate digitally. This does not mean senior roles cannot be remote, but it does mean the trade-offs must be explicitly considered and mitigated — for example, through structured mentoring programmes, regular in-person team days, and deliberate management by outcomes rather than presence. Consider the composition of the team the individual leads: a fully remote senior leader managing a predominantly on-site team creates particular challenges for inclusion and visibility. Discuss expectations with the individual explicitly, including what in-person commitments will be non-negotiable regardless of the agreed working pattern.\n  yes -> Q5\n  no  -> Q6\n\nQ5: Is the team distributed across multiple time zones — with colleagues or key stakeholders located more than three hours' time difference away on a regular basis — creating genuine ambiguity about which model best serves the senior role?\n  hint: A senior leader managing a globally distributed team faces competing demands: the team needs cultural leadership that benefits from in-person presence, yet the primary working relationships span time zones that a fixed office location cannot bridge. This combination does not have a single correct answer and requires individual assessment by the line manager in consultation with HR and senior leadership. Consider the role's specific responsibilities — a VP managing three regional leads across continents is a different case from a team lead with two colleagues in a nearby time zone. Document the specific factors creating ambiguity and present a structured recommendation with options, trade-offs, and a review date.\n  yes -> [CASE_BY_CASE]\n  no  -> [HYBRID]\n\nQ6: Is the team distributed across multiple time zones, with colleagues or key stakeholders located more than three hours' time difference away on a regular basis?\n  hint: Significant time zone distribution fundamentally changes the operating rhythm of a team — synchronous collaboration windows are limited, handoffs become more complex, and the value of a fixed office location for the individual is reduced if their primary working relationships are with colleagues they will never share an office with. A team spread across UK, US, and APAC time zones may find that a fully flexible or remote model better serves collaboration than a hybrid model that demands office attendance during hours when global colleagues are unavailable. Conversely, if the time zone distribution is modest — for example, UK and Central European — the collaboration challenges are manageable and a structured flexible hybrid model remains highly effective. Document the primary working relationships and their locations as part of this assessment to ensure the workplace model supports actual working patterns rather than an assumed co-located team.\n  yes -> [FULLY_REMOTE]\n  no  -> [FLEXIBLE_HYBRID]\n\n[ONSITE_REQUIRED]: Fully On-Site Required\n  color: #546E7A\n  description: The role requires full-time on-site presence due to client-facing obligations, intensive collaboration requirements, data security constraints, or the absence of a suitable home working environment. Communicate this requirement clearly in the job description and during the hiring process so that candidates self-select appropriately, and ensure it is documented in the employment contract to avoid future ambiguity. Review the on-site requirement annually, as changes in client expectations, technology, and the role's responsibilities may alter the calculus over time. Ensure the on-site workspace is well-equipped, ergonomically sound, and supports the productivity of staff who are required to be present every day — on-site requirements that are not matched by a quality working environment create unnecessary dissatisfaction and retention risk.\n  code: OPS_WM_ONSITE\n\n[HYBRID]: Hybrid (2–3 Days Office)\n  color: #2E7D32\n  description: A structured hybrid model requiring two to three days per week in the office is the recommended workplace arrangement for this role, balancing the collaboration and culture benefits of in-person working with the focus and flexibility benefits of remote working. Agree the specific office days — or at minimum the team anchor days — with the line manager and team, and record the arrangement formally in a flexible working agreement or employment contract addendum. Ensure that office days are used purposefully for collaboration, team meetings, and relationship-building rather than replicated as remote working days physically relocated to a desk. Review the arrangement at the six-month mark using a structured conversation covering productivity, collaboration quality, and the individual's wellbeing, and adjust if the evidence suggests a different balance would be more effective.\n  code: OPS_WM_HYBRID\n\n[FLEXIBLE_HYBRID]: Flexible Hybrid (Ad-Hoc)\n  color: #1565C0\n  description: A flexible hybrid arrangement — where the individual works from the office on an ad-hoc basis driven by collaboration needs rather than a fixed schedule — is appropriate for this role given its independent working nature and suitable home environment. Establish clear expectations about the types of activities that should be performed in the office (team events, kick-off meetings, sensitive conversations) versus those that can be done remotely, and agree a minimum frequency of in-person attendance to maintain team cohesion. Provide the individual with access to a desk-booking system and ensure they have the equipment needed to work effectively from both locations without friction. Conduct a quarterly check-in to assess whether the ad-hoc model is working in practice — flexible arrangements can drift into full remote without deliberate management, which may not suit the team or the individual's development.\n  code: OPS_WM_FLEX_HYBRID\n\n[FULLY_REMOTE]: Fully Remote Approved\n  color: #00695C\n  description: Given the team's significant time zone distribution and the individual's suitable home working environment, a fully remote working arrangement is appropriate and operationally beneficial for this role. Establish a clear remote working policy covering equipment provision, data security requirements, home working expenses, and the minimum participation expectations for team events and in-person gatherings — typically two to four team days per year. Invest deliberately in asynchronous communication infrastructure — well-maintained documentation, clear decision logs, and structured update processes — to compensate for the absence of in-person osmotic communication. Schedule a 12-month formal review of the remote arrangement, including structured feedback from colleagues and the line manager, to confirm that the model continues to serve the individual's performance and development as well as the team's operational needs.\n  code: OPS_WM_REMOTE\n\n[CASE_BY_CASE]: Requires Case-by-Case Manager Decision\n  color: #B71C1C\n  description: The combination of factors identified does not point clearly to a single workplace model — the decision requires individual assessment by the line manager in consultation with HR and, where relevant, senior leadership. Document the specific factors creating ambiguity (for example, partial client-facing requirements combined with a senior role and distributed team) and present a structured recommendation with options and trade-offs for the relevant decision-maker to consider. Ensure the decision is made consistently with any decisions made for comparable roles to avoid creating perceptions of unfairness within the team. Record the outcome and the rationale in the individual's personnel file, set a review date within six months, and communicate the decision to the individual with a clear explanation of the factors that were considered.\n  code: OPS_WM_CASE_BY_CASE\n"
}