Hoxby: Cultivating Inclusion through the WorkStyle Revolution
In 2025, Hoxby began a new chapter in its work to reimagine employment. The organization, which for years operated asa fully remote collective of professionals, is now taking steps to help other companies and individuals experience the benefits of autonomy. This ambition has given rise to the WorkStyle Revolution, a project that aims to remove barriers for people who have often been excluded from traditional forms of work.
This blog post is part of 80+ case studies of progressive organizations we created for the ZeroDX awards 2025. These organizations embody the principles of RenDanHeYi in their work structures:
Zero Distance to customer: Decision what to build is based on insights from the marketplace
Autonomy: Small teams with full decision-making autonomy enable speed in execution
Shared Rewards: Everyone in the micro-enterprise participates in its financial success.
Since its founding in 2015, Hoxby built a reputation as a creative agency without fixed offices or hierarchy. Over time, the team recognized that offering flexibility was not enough on its own.
Many professionals were eager to adopt more independent working styles but lacked the skills and confidence to do so. As Alex Hirst described, people often arrived expecting clear schedules and instructions. They were surprised tofind they were responsible for deciding how and when to deliver outcomes.
This realization motivated a shift in focus. After publishing a book in 2022 that described Hoxby’s journey, the foundersbegan to develop learning materials to support others in acquiring the mindset and capabilities needed for autonomous work.
Early in 2025, Hoxby established the WorkStyle Revolution as a separate community interest company. This structurewas chosen to ensure any profits would be reinvested in activities that benefit society. The project has two main elements.
The WorkStyle Academy is a platform where individuals can learn about personal productivity and leadership. It focuses on helping participants balance self-responsibility with reliability toward others. The curriculum includesexamples and scenarios reflecting diverse backgrounds, including those of people with health conditions or caring responsibilities.
Alongside the Academy, the WorkStyle Pioneers program provides opportunities for people from marginalized groups to pilot new ways of working within client organizations. These pilots serve two purposes. They help companies experiment with more flexible models, and they offer individuals practical experience that can build confidence and skills.
By mid-2025, the first group of six pioneers had begun testing learning materials and providing feedback to improve the program.
Although Hoxby’s approach developed independently, it shows many parallels to RenDanHeYi. The focus on autonomy and self-management echoes RDHY’s principle of enabling every person to act as the owner of their work. The commitment to designing work around the needs of clients and users reflects the idea of zero distance to the market.
Hoxby also plans to create an assessment framework to help organizations understand whether they are ready tocollaborate with trained “work stylers.” This step aligns with RDHY’s emphasis on transparency and clear agreements between units. Over time, Hoxby envisions an ecosystem in which professionals can deliver projects for different companies, in a structure similar to RDHY’s network of micro-enterprises.
The WorkStyle community, which now includes about 1,000 people, has become the main source of talent for Hoxby’sclient projects. This integration ensures that professionals can apply what they learn in the Academy directly to real assignments. It also supports a broader goal of creating more opportunities for people whose personal situations make conventional employment inaccessible.
Alex Hirst noted that many individuals benefit when they can choose how and when they work, not only those in clearly defined marginalized groups. However, the Academy gives special attention to people who have been structurally excluded, recognizing that they often face the greatest obstacles.
While the ambition is clear, the team acknowledges that this is an early-stage effort. The learning materials are still being refined, and the pilot program is only in its first phase. Among the main challenges are ensuring content staysrelevant to diverse users, finding effective ways to measure results, and sustaining progress with limited resources.
Despite these uncertainties, the purpose remains constant. As Alex described, the intention is to give people the tools and confidence to participate fully in the modern economy, rather than expecting everyone to adapt to outdated norms.
Hoxby’s evolution shows how an organization can move from proving a model internally to sharing it widely. TheWorkStyle Revolution represents an effort to scale autonomy, inclusion, and shared purpose, in ways that reflect the spirit of RenDanHeYi while responding to the specific barriers many people face.
In the coming years, the initiative may offer lessons on how organizations can build systems that work for everyone, rather than a privileged few.
