How COVID-19 Has Changed The Workplace

 

Much of the management literature on effective leadership communication behaviour takes one thing for granted: the physical appearance of managers at the workplace (see for example the chapter “Managing in the age of the Internet” in Mintzberg, 2019, pp.24). While in the last few decades the workplace environment has only gradually shifted (mainly from single and small group offices to large open office spaces), the COVID-19 pandemic has transformed the workplace in light speed. As a result, many leaders are now physically separated from their team and other stakeholders with whom they previously interacted in close proximity.

Businesses around the world have ordered their employees to work from home. In some cases, only a fraction (e.g., 30%) of staff went back to their offices, or there are alternating shifts between work from home and the office. What is more, many large companies have already publicly announced that they consider continuing (at least partly) to leave staff in home offices for good, including after the pandemic has ceased.

Comic Strip: "How height advantage disappeared in times of Zoom meetings" 

These new work arrangements are being characterised by:

• a shift in working hours with team members working asynchronously and at different times;
• indirect and digital communication channels replacing direct ones – for instance, many meetings are held online (e.g., via Zoom), while personal, physical encounters are restricted;
• both the process and output of the team members’ work not being possible to observe or supervise directly, and perceptions made both by employees and managers of “slacking in” their office hours (affecting work productivity).

Therefore, leadership behaviour has to be adapted to the circumstances and our hypothesis is that known management best-practices that evolved over decades are prone to change. In this new setup, as a recent study from Harvard Business Publishing Corporate Learning (2020) found, many managers are not well equipped for the changed requirements, while others cope well with the new realities.

From the large range of leadership tasks and skills, we assume that some are more affected than others in the remote workplace ( Introductory Survey on Leadership ). Thus, the project will elaborate on the hypothesis that the remote workplace situation requires a new mix of leadership skills.

The guiding question of our project is: How does leadership behaviour change or need to change when communicating with teams happens online?

In this context, we want to examine (among other things) how leaders motivate people with online tools such as Zoom or emails, what role does Emotional Intelligence (EQ) play and what leadership styles are best suited for the remote work situation.