Hybrid working is no longer a temporary response to post-pandemic working patterns. In FMCG Sales and Marketing, it has evolved into a fundamental part of how businesses attract talent, build capability, and drive performance.
What was once positioned as a “benefit” is now a commercial lever — one that directly affects hiring outcomes, salary expectations, team productivity, and long-term retention. The organisations getting this right are widening their talent pools and accelerating growth. Those that are not are finding hiring slower, more expensive, and increasingly constrained.
From Experiment to Expectation
Most FMCG businesses have now landed on clearer hybrid working models, after several years of experimentation. Across the UK market, a consistent pattern has emerged:
• 2 days per week in the office is the clear candidate preference
• 3 days per week is widely acceptable
• 4–5 days per week is increasingly seen as unmanageable
Companies asking employees for full-time office attendance are experiencing noticeably smaller and less diverse talent pools. While some businesses report limited short-term impact on retention, attraction is where the pressure shows — especially when competing for passive, high-calibre talent.
The message from the market is clear: flexibility is no longer a differentiator; it is a baseline expectation.
Commuting, Cost, and the Hidden Salary Effect
Hybrid working has also shifted how candidates evaluate total reward. Decisions are no longer based on salary and title alone. Commuting time, travel costs, and lifestyle impact are now central to role evaluation.
Candidates are actively calculating the “real cost” of a role:
• More days in the office = shorter acceptable commute
• Shorter commute = smaller available talent pool
• Higher commuting cost = higher salary expectations
In contrast, flexible hybrid models allow businesses to recruit from wider geographic areas, access niche skillsets, and reduce upward pressure on base salary. In a market where precision hiring is the norm and competition for proven FMCG talent remains high, this has become a material commercial advantage.
Rebalancing Flexibility With Culture, Learning & Development
While flexibility remains critical, we are now seeing a more nuanced shift in candidate sentiment. After several years of remote-heavy working, many professionals — particularly early-career and mid-level talent — are actively seeking more in-office time.
The reason is simple: learning, development, and culture are harder to build remotely.
Junior hires benefit from daily exposure, informal coaching, and real-time feedback. Managers often develop faster through proximity to senior decision-makers. Leadership teams, meanwhile, report stronger alignment, better debate, and quicker decision-making when spending structured time together.
This has forced a rethink. The question is no longer “remote or office?” but how to balance flexibility with capability-building.
One Size No Longer Fits All
Many FMCG businesses are moving away from blanket policies and towards role-based hybrid models, recognising that different functions and seniority levels can benefit from different levels of flexibility.
Examples we’ve seen include:
• Junior roles: 3 days in-office to support learning, confidence, and progression
• Leadership & strategic roles: 2–3 days to enable collaboration without sacrificing focus
• Sales & field-based roles: home-based to be based closer to customers, with intentional office time
This approach protects culture and performance while preserving flexibility — and critically, it gives hiring managers clarity when engaging candidates.
Hybrid as a Talent Strategy, Not an HR Policy
Hybrid working should no longer sit solely within HR guidelines. It is a core part of employer value proposition and a strategic input into workforce planning.
Businesses that treat flexibility as a talent strategy — aligned to role design, capability needs, and long-term growth — are seeing:
• Wider and higher-quality candidate shortlists
• Faster hiring processes
• Greater engagement post-hire
• Reduced risk of early attrition
Those that default to rigid structures risk shrinking talent pools, slower decision-making, and losing high-impact candidates late in the process.
The Competitive Advantage Going Forward
As FMCG hiring continues to move towards fewer, more strategic roles, the margin for error in recruitment is shrinking. Candidate experience, speed to hire, and clarity of proposition increasingly differentiate successful teams.
Hybrid working now sits firmly within that equation.
The organisations that win over the next 3–5 years will be those that stop viewing flexibility as a concession and start using it as a performance enabler — one that supports productivity, culture, and access to the best commercial talent in the market.
In FMCG Sales and Marketing, hybrid working is no longer about where people work. It is about how effectively businesses build teams that can execute, adapt, and grow.
