[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# A Systems Thinking Approach to Navigating the Future of Work: Remote, Hybrid, and On-site

## Details

**Authors** Valdés Garciatorres, Jorge

**Year** 2024

**Publisher** Ingeniosi Staffing

**Kind of work** article

**Discipline** Business & Management

**Kind of engagement** public

**Applied** false

[Read it](https://ingeniosistaffing.com/nearshoring-a-strategic-move-for-u-s-companies-in-the-decade-ahead-2/)

## In authors' words

### What they set out to do (purpose)

To argue that remote, hybrid and on-site work should be analyzed as interconnected systems rather than as three options to choose between, and to carry out that analysis using DSRP. The author introduces the framework as "The DSRP model, developed by Cabrera & Cabrera (2015)" and says it "encourages us to explore four key components: Distinctions, Systems, Relationships, and Perspectives."

### How they did it (methods)

A staffing-company blog post structured as four analytic sections, one per pattern, taken in order. Distinctions defines each of the three work models. Systems examines technology, company culture, employee well-being and productivity. Relationships links the work models to talent retention, collaboration and innovation, and client and business needs. Perspectives compares the views of employees, organizations and society, including cost, talent access and environmental effects. The post cites Systems Thinking Made Simple and credits the Cabrera Research Lab.

### What they found (results)

The author concludes that "The DSRP approach provides a comprehensive framework" for the question, and that no single work model fits every organization: companies should find a balance suited to their goals, culture and workforce. The analysis is argued from the framework rather than from data, and no case, survey or measurement is reported.

## Commentary

### In short

A staffing-industry post that runs the remote, hybrid and on-site work question through all four DSRP patterns in sequence, defining the three models, then their containing systems, then their consequences for retention and collaboration, then the differing views of employees, organizations and society.

### In more detail

The post is one of the fuller practitioner applications of the whole framework rather than a single pattern. Each section does what its pattern names. The Distinctions section separates the three work models and says what each is and is not — location flexibility for remote, a mix for hybrid, structure and in-person contact for on-site — before any claim is made about which is better, which is the correct order of operations. The Systems section asks what each model is part of, naming technology, culture, well-being and productivity as the containing systems rather than treating the work model as a self-contained choice. The Relationships section is the most consequential: it connects the models to talent retention, to collaboration and innovation, and to client and business needs, which is where the author's conclusion that there is no single right answer comes from. The Perspectives section sets employee, organizational and societal vantages against each other, including the environmental consequences of commuting, so that the same arrangement is shown costing different things depending on who is looking. What the post does not do is treat the patterns as simultaneous. It presents them as an ordered procedure — "The next step in the DSRP approach is to analyze these models as systems," then "Next step under this approach would be understanding Relationships," then "Now it's time to adopt different perspectives." The analysis is the better for being thorough, but the sequencing is the author's organizing device rather than something the framework supplies.

### Response

Valdés Garciatorres gets the content of each pattern right and, unusually for a practitioner piece, applies all four rather than borrowing one. The order he happens to follow is also sound practice: he fixes what the three work models are before asking what they are part of, which avoids the common error of debating a thing whose boundaries were never agreed. The framework is nonetheless presented as a four-step procedure, with each pattern introduced as the next step after the last. That is not what DSRP claims. The four patterns are co-implicated and operate simultaneously — a distinction is always drawn from a perspective, and a system's parts are themselves distinctions — which is why the theory describes rules rather than stages.

**Patterns it shows** D, S, R, P

**Added** 2026-10-20

**How to cite this** Valdés Garciatorres, Jorge (2024). A Systems Thinking Approach to Navigating the Future of Work: Remote, Hybrid, and On-site. Ingeniosi Staffing.