The widespread adoption of hybrid work arrangements following the COVID-19 pandemic has fundamentally reshaped the psychological and organisational landscape of contemporary employment. While hybrid work offers employees greater autonomy, reduced commuting burden, and improved scheduling flexibility, emerging evidence indicates that it has generated new and persistent sources of occupational stress, including digital fatigue, blurred work-life boundaries, social isolation, and the erosion of organisational trust through invasive monitoring practices. This paper presents a comprehensive review and synthesis of recent empirical and survey-based research, drawing on data from Gallup, Deloitte, ADP Research Institute, YourDOST, HCL Healthcare, and peer-reviewed academic journals, to examine the prevalence, causes, and consequences of stress in hybrid work settings, with particular attention to the Indian organisational context. Using the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model as a theoretical framework, the study identifies workload intensification, communication breakdowns, job insecurity, and always-on digital culture as the dominant stressors, while highlighting managerial support, autonomy, and structured well-being interventions as the most effective buffering resources. The paper further presents visual data analysis through charts depicting comparative stress levels, leading causal factors, and India-specific indicators of workplace mental health. The paper concludes with a discussion of practical, evidence-based stress management strategies for organisations navigating the hybrid work era, including flexible scheduling policies, mental health infrastructure, manager training, and the institutionalisation of the right to disconnect.
Purohit et al. (Sat,) studied this question.
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