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Never again automatically spending five standard days at the office. No daily traffic jam just because that is how things have always been done. And being able to work from home on a Wednesday afternoon when that simply suits you better. Hybrid working has given millions of Dutch people something we had been longing for for years: freedom. Yet something remarkable is happening. While we are working more flexibly than ever, work stress and burnout symptoms continue to rise. Perhaps we have been asking the wrong question. Not: where are we allowed to work? But: where and how do we actually work at our best?

The laptop is open on the kitchen table. Teams is on. The first meeting starts at nine, while the washing machine is already running at home.

Sound familiar?

In just a few years, hybrid working has gone from exception to a fixed part of working life in the Netherlands. According to the most recent figures from CBS , in 2025 more than 5.1 million of the 9.8 million working people sometimes or usually worked from home.

Among companies with ten or more employees, no less than 80% made remote working possible.

This development therefore seems more or less complete.

We now know that we can work from different places. But that does not mean we are there yet.

We are satisfied with our work and exhausted at the same time

Because alongside all this flexibility, a very different development is unfolding across working Netherlands.

CBS reported for 2025 that no less than 87% of people who work at least twelve hours per week are satisfied with their work.

That sounds quite positive. Until you place another figure next to it.

From the National Working Conditions Survey 2025 by TNO and CBS, completed by more than 53,000 employees, it appears that 21% of employees now experience burnout symptoms.

Ten years earlier, in 2015, that was still around 13%. So we often enjoy our work, while at the same time a growing group is becoming mentally exhausted by it.

And that is exactly where a striking contradiction emerges in modern working life.

We have gained more freedom to organise our work. But freedom alone does not appear to guarantee energy, work happiness or recovery.

Moving your laptop is not yet a new way of working

That is exactly where the discussion about hybrid working sometimes becomes a little too easy.

Working from home? Check.

Laptop? Check.

Teams? Check.

Ergonomic office chair? Hopefully check.

And there you have it: modern work policy.

But someone who spends eight hours at the office rushing from one meeting to the next can do exactly the same at home. Just without the commute.

If someone structurally has too much work, that is not solved by placing their laptop on the kitchen table two days a week. And an employee who experiences little connection, inspiration or autonomy will not automatically find it by working from home on Fridays.

The figures from TNO show this clearly. In 2025, 43% of Dutch employees experienced a low level of autonomy. In addition, 31% faced high job demands and 15% had what TNO describes as a stressful job: high demands combined with little control over how the work can be organised.

More than 37% of employees believe additional measures are needed to tackle workload and work stress.

So the challenge goes deeper than whether Tuesday should be a working-from-home day or an office day.

Home gives freedom. The office gives something else.

A recent Dutch study by researchers from TNO makes this even more interesting.

For the study, 201 Dutch office workers were followed over multiple working days, resulting in 1,448 daily measurements. The researchers looked not only at where someone worked, but also at autonomy, connectedness, work enjoyment and stress.

There was no simple winner. And that is exactly what makes it interesting.

On working-from-home days, employees experienced, on average, more autonomy.

On office and hybrid days, they experienced more connectedness with others.

And both autonomy and connectedness were associated with more work enjoyment and less work stress.

In other words:

home can offer something the office does not, and the office can offer something that is harder to find at home.

The ideal working environment probably does not exist. But the ideal mix of working environments perhaps does.

What do you need to work well today?

Do you need deep concentration? Then a quiet workspace can be ideal.

Do you need to develop something new together? Then personal contact may be much more valuable.

Have you been working under high pressure for weeks? Then perhaps what you mainly need is recovery and distance.

Are you stuck in a project or business? Then a completely new environment can open up fresh perspectives.

And sometimes you simply need people around you, a good conversation or an environment that helps you look at the same problem differently again.

That sounds logical. Yet we still organise work surprisingly often around locations and calendars, instead of around what people need to function well in a sustainable way.

More productivity also does not automatically mean less pressure

There is something else to add.

Technology makes it possible to work increasingly efficiently and independently. According to new research by TNO from June 2026, around 40% of employees say they can now complete more work in the same amount of time thanks to technology.

That sounds like progress. But at the same time, TNO warns that higher productivity does not automatically result in less workload.

In fact: around one third of both employees and employers expect the mental demands of work to increase further in the coming years.

So we can do more and more. From more and more places. In less and less time.

The relevant question is therefore becoming less about whether we can work flexibly.

The question is how we prevent all those possibilities from ultimately meaning that work can find us everywhere.

From flexible working to conscious working

Perhaps hybrid working is therefore entering a new phase.

The first phase was about place:

Do we really have to go to the office every day?

We now know the answer. No.

The next phase is about something much more interesting:

Which way of working helps people maintain energy, experience enjoyment, feel connected and continue to develop?

This is not only about home versus office.

A working environment can also be used consciously to step away from existing routines, gain new experiences, find inspiration, recover or work purposefully on personal and professional goals.

That is exactly why it becomes interesting to stop putting work into two boxes, office or home, and to look more broadly at the environment in which we work.

The next work revolution may not be about freedom, but about direction

Because if employees can work from anywhere, it also becomes possible to choose more consciously why you work somewhere and what that environment should do for you.

Sometimes you need focus. Sometimes connection. Sometimes recovery.

And sometimes precisely a new environment that literally and figuratively takes you out of your daily pattern.

At theWorkationers, we look at this through three dimensions that together are important for getting the best out of your work and your life:

Inspire. Enjoy. Grow.

Not every day has to contain all three.

But if one or more dimensions are missing for months, that may say more about how well your work truly fits you than the number of days you spend at home or at the office.

Because ultimately, hybrid working is only a means.

True freedom begins when you can not only choose where you work, but also increasingly understand what you need to work and live with energy, inspiration and focus.

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