What makes hybrid and remote work, work? Dr. Maggie Wan hopes research holds the answer.

SAN MARCOS, Texas — As hybrid work remains a hot topic, Dr. Maggie Wan, associate professor of management at Texas State University's McCoy College of Business, is leading research to understand its long-term effects on employees and workplaces.

With support from the Scott Emerson Family Professorship in Business, which she was awarded in 2024, Wan is investigating how hybrid work dynamics shift over time and how organizations can develop policies to support employees. Her goal with this project is to provide a more thorough understanding of these practices.

"The problem we are trying to solve is to take a more longitudinal perspective to capture the changes related to hybrid work," Wan said. "What are the changes in terms of employees, workplace, family relationships, their well-being or their mental health, and how do these evolve in the whole process of hybrid work."

Wan said this work is essential, especially in the wake of increasing return-to-office mandates across the country.

"[Hybrid work] has become much more prevalent nowadays, and we have seen some big companies calling employees back to work," Wan said. "The RTO mandates create a misconception that everyone's willing to go back to work in office. Based on a survey report done by Gallup, people who are currently remote or hybrid workers embrace and appreciate this work mode. So this creates discrepancies between some companies' preferences versus employees' real expectations."

While the project is still in its early stages, Wan said that once it is complete, she wants her findings to be applied in real-world settings. She hopes to collaborate with industry leaders to use her research findings to develop and enhance workplace policies.

"I hope we can help shift the conversation from should we have hybrid work or not to how we can make it work well," Wan said. "Other things that I would like is to have some connections with some companies to see how these findings can be put into practice because I think the critical thing about doing research is that we want to make sure that the things from our research findings can work, can bring some positive changes or make some improvement for management and the whole hybrid work design."

Wan said she also uses her research in the classroom to provide students with relevant industry insights. This practice allows students to study modern business challenges from different perspectives and helps improve their critical thinking skills.

Thinking ahead, Wan plans to study how artificial intelligence (AI) affects work-life balance for a future project. While AI can potentially streamline tedious tasks and improve productivity, she suggests it could also lead to employee burnout due to the need for continuous upskilling as the technology progresses.

"We think that it will definitely benefit our work-life balance because we get to outsource the work to AI to do the tedious, repetitive work," she said. "On the other hand, AI can increase high burnout because AI is developing so fast. So, I guess the question worth exploring is: Is AI really improving our work-life balance? Or does it make it worse? And how organizations can introduce AI to employees in a better way so that people will not feel overwhelmed."

Wan's passion for management stems from her interest in workplace dynamics and culture. She said she has long wondered why some workplaces bring out the best in employees while others create toxic environments.

"I am an observer," she said. "Ever since I was a child, I just like to watch how others work and interact with each other in work settings."

As the Scott Emerson Family Professor in Business, Wan is dedicated to advancing the management field and has a few tips for students with career aspirations in this area.

"Stay curious and ask the questions that inspire you because that's the true motivation I think that will get anyone interested in this area to go further and don't underestimate the skills of communication, of the people skills," she said. "And one last thing, it's probably not just for the management field students, but for everyone, is starting to think about what work-life balance means to you and the best way to manage it. I wish I could share that with myself in my early 20s." ✯