Over the past two years, work has swung wildly from in-person to fully remote, and back again, settling into a hybrid model at many companies. This has been a jolting experience for any employee. But how has it affected interns, many of whom are Gen-Zers, who have never stepped foot inside an office? Here’s a case study: three sisters, all college juniors, three completely different internship experiences. 

Growing up as an identical triplet, my sisters and I were all incredibly similar. Somehow, though, we all ended up on our own paths, at different schools, with completely separate majors and career interests. We are scattered across the country this summer: a software engineering internship in Seattle for Microsoft, lab work in Beverly, MA, and a content marketing internship split between downtown Boston and work-from-home. All very different internships, but more interestingly, different work models as well: one fully in-person, and two hybrid in different forms.

As the content marketing intern for Owl Labs, I am experiencing a remote-leaning but hybrid internship– I can truly work from anywhere. My manager lives in Italy, so we rely on a mix of synchronous and asynchronous communication to bridge the time difference. Since I live in the Boston area, though, I have the chance to come into the office a few times a week and get the experience of commuting and connecting in-person. 

Hybrid has let me thrive this summer. I personally feel equally productive in both environments, and have loved having flexibility. A lot of full-time employees feel the same way. According to Owl’s 2021 State of Remote Work Report, 90% of employees feel just as productive– or more– working from home than the office, and 71% want a hybrid working model.

That said, there are definitely potential pain points with hybrid work, whether it’s meeting setup headaches, proximity bias, or other minor snags. Fortunately, I have been working for a company that specializes in video conferencing tech. Owl Labs is constantly iterating on best practices for hybrid meeting setup and online communication to try to solve these issues. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, my sister Maddy has a fully in-person internship with a necessary daily commute, working as a lab intern at Cell Signaling Technologies in Beverly, Massachusetts.  Most employees, including her assigned mentor, are in the office the majority of the week. 

“Being in person in at least some capacity is absolutely essential for lab work, particularly while learning new techniques,” she says. “There is no simulator or virtual version of this and no way to replace the muscle memory.” 

She also feels she has learned a lot about office culture by coming in every day. “Most of the time I was more motivated and got more done, both because I was excited to be learning new techniques and because I felt positive peer pressure from sitting near my coworkers who were hard at work,” says Maddy. Still, despite a well-organized program and great hands-on learning experience, there were still some drawbacks.

“Commuting was definitely the downside,” she says. Without public transit nearby, she could expect about an hour-long drive every day. To arrive by 8:30, this meant losing some sleep. 

She only took one remote afternoon the entire summer, but there was definitely potential for some tasks to go hybrid. “Nearly all meetings were virtual despite most participants being in the office,” she says. And background reading and most data analysis work, which made up about half of her post-training workload, could have been done remotely. 

Still, while on the clock, there wasn’t formal structure to the day aside from coming in and performing experiments as scheduled. More rigidity with hours, more “lost minutes” of downtime, less flexibility.

My sister Abby flew out to Seattle for the summer to work at Microsoft. “In-person but hybrid” is how she described the format of her software engineering work, as Microsoft shifts to becoming hybrid-friendly post pandemic. “Meetings were online on Teams, and many of the events were on Teams in order to be inclusive,” says Abby.  “However, I had a desk assigned for me and went in most days, and there were several on-campus events.”

With a five-minute commute, being in-office was expected of interns, and an experience they enjoyed. “I liked having access to a second monitor so I could have two screens for coding,” she says. 

Still, interns being fully in–person didn’t mean all employees were. Abby’s mentor lived in California, so she interacted with him purely online. And while her manager was in the Seattle area, they often connected remotely. She had her cohort of fellow interns as lunch buddies in the office, but was able to take a half day remote every so often. “I really liked going into the office but it was great to have some flexibility,” says Abby. 

She valued having opportunities for in-person connection, like coffee chats with female-identifying full-time employees. These chances to network face to face were grounding and energizing.  “I think being fully remote can be a bit isolating,” she says. 

Managing expectations is key. Sudden shifts in work style can create whiplash and isolation,  like it did for interns interviewed in a recent New York Times article who found themselves the only one in the office as their upper management worked remotely. I knew from the beginning that most of my face time with my team members would come via video conference, so my remote days were not a surprise.

To be effective, hybrid work has to be executed with the right tools. This might include physical tech, like the Meeting Owl I came to know and love this summer, but also company culture and the communication systems in place: clear guidelines, and concerted efforts to connect remote and in-person employees. 

My final takeaway from comparing different internship experiences? Not every job can be hybrid, but where possible, hybrid work is amazing. I experienced a mix of energizing in-office days where I got the chance to directly connect with upper leadership I would not have met had I been fully remote, and also had work days without a commute where I could use “bonus” time saved more productively– whether starting my workday earlier than if I was commuting or squeezing in self-care time or household chores.