With the pandemic at least appearing to be winding down and businesses reopening, many people who were lucky enough to keep their jobs are preparing to go back to the office instead of doing all of their business over Zoom calls. But that may not apply to everyone, or at least not on a full-time basis. A report out this week suggests that Joe Biden is considering making the work-from-home option permanent for many federal employees. But what would that look like? Business Insider has some of the details that have been released so far.

The White House is considering making flexible working the norm for more federal employees after the pandemic, according to a report by The Washington Post.

The Biden administration is likely to change flexible working rules permanently so that more people can mix working from home with some time in the office, per the report.

President Donald Trump rolled back some remote-working policies introduced by Barack Obama.

As we’ve discussed here previously, not all jobs can be done remotely (obviously). Manufacturing and maintenance work requires workers to be on-site to perform physical tasks. But for other fields in the technical and communication sectors, there are some significant potential benefits to having a scattered workforce. Yet those benefits depend on how the shift to remote work is handled.

What the White House is looking at is a “hybrid” model of remote work. Those of you who are parents and have been dealing with children attempting “hybrid learning” are probably having bad flashbacks about now, but in the adult world, it doesn’t have to be that bad. The model Biden is considering would have workers coming into the office part of the time while working at home on other days. Who wins and who loses in that sort of model?

As I said, that depends on how the program is implemented. One of the biggest benefits for employers moving to remote work is that they don’t need nearly as much physical office space for all of those workers. That reduces costs in many areas, while even quietly passing some costs off to the employees. (Think of electricity, heating and air conditioning for example.) A “hybrid” program like the one being discussed could still retain some savings if shared, collective workspaces are established where multiple people use each space when they’re in the office and the other spaces are shut down and/or sold off. But if everyone still maintains their old office space but simply doesn’t come in half of the time, those savings are lost.

Similarly, there will be workers who will enjoy not commuting on as many days, reducing transportation costs and stress. Let’s not forget that recent poll that found nearly two-thirds of workers would turn down a $30K raise in favor of continuing to work from home permanently. There’s clearly an appetite for this out there, though it’s not for everyone.

But some of the biggest benefits of remote work are experienced by parents who may be able to reduce their childcare costs if they are always at home when the children are there. Working from home only part of the time doesn’t do much for them.

I’m not going to pan this plan entirely until the White House has all of the details hammered out. There is some potential for saving some taxpayer dollars and perhaps even creating a better work environment. But they could easily drop the ball on this as well. And given that we’re talking about Washington, let’s not all start holding our breath for the best possible outcome just yet.