- HOME
- Introduction
- _COVID & Workplace
- _Introductory Survey
- Interviews
- __Interview Introduction
- __Case: Carlos
- __Case: Lorena
- __Case: Luis
- __Case: Sandra
- Communication
- _Channels
- _Change by COVID
- Tasks/Skills
- _Motivation
- _Productivity
- _Emotional Intelligence
- Work from Home
- _Home Office
- _Starting a New Job
- _Workplace Organisation
- Conclusion
Showing posts from November 25, 2020Show All
Motivation
Introduction to the concept of motivation A motive can be defined as an “emotion or desire operating on the will and causing it to act” (Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, 2020) . In this respect, “motivations provide the motor for behaviour” (Fiske & Taylor, 1984, cited in Pincus, 2004, p. 375) . Motivation in the work context means how much an employee is willing to contribute towards organisational goals. While each employee may have several, different needs, managers should try to understand which motivators drive organisational performan…
Usage Change of Communication Channels During COVID
n=6 (averaged) We asked six of our interviewees to estimate the time they used for each communication channel before and since COVID, in percentage as a share of the total working time. Not surprisingly, physical communication has all but diminished, including physical meetings in meeting rooms, other interactions in the office as well as off-sites and lunch meetings. These channels have been replaced by digital channels, with online group meetings (e.g. via Zoom or MS Teams) now making up 40% of the total work time of employees. Both telepho…
Communication Channels
The effect of physical channels lost Before going deeper into the new digital communication channels used, we talked with our interviewees about the changes to their established communication habits, particularly those that require physical contact. One manager told us that he used to do a “walk around the office” every day, checking on all employees and having both informal and project related conversations. This channel has been lost during remote work completely. Similarly, there has been no chance to have spontaneous encounters with team m…
Lorena “The Empathic Manager”
Next, we interviewed a 33-year-old manager, Lorena, who has been in charge of a team of six people in the Talent & Culture department of a Mexican medium size e-commerce company since 2015. Since March of this year, all staff members (except those from the Operations Department) have started doing remote work. A relevant point to address is that almost none of the employees (with an average age of around 24 to 35 years) in the company have children, which makes a big difference when working remotely. As in the first interview with Carlos, …
Interview Introduction
We conducted eleven in-depth interviews with both managers (five interviews) and employees (six interviews) from different industries and company types and sizes, mainly in Mexico both also in Germany and Venezuela. On three occasions we could interview a manager and his or her subordinate (separately), which allowed us to directly compare their perceptions on the leadership situation. The interviews usually lasted between 40 and 60 minutes each and were mostly conducted via video call (four were conducted in-person), based on a semi-structure…
Introductory Survey on Leadership
Leadership skills and tasks before and during COVID In order to establish the ground base of our project and as a first test of our hypotheses, we asked our fellow colleagues from the Full-Time MBA programme (all are experienced entrepreneurs or managers) in a small non-representative survey (n=20) about their own experiences regarding leadership tasks and skills (before and during COVID). The answers supported our hypothesis to focus on motivation as an important leadership task, to look into Emotional Intelligence as a leadership skill and t…
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 th…
Project Background: Leadership and Organisational Behaviour
This blog post is a group project of the Leadership and Organisational Behaviour class from the 2020/21 Full-time MBA in Innovation & Entrepreneurship programme at EGADE Business School, Mexico-City. Professor: Dr. Ajnesh Prasad. Authors: Gabriela Vargas, Roberto Perez, Mischa Sander. Our group project relates to a range of topics in the field of Leadership and Organisational Behaviour, foremost Organisational Communication. There are different ways and forms to “get the job done” and to collaborate with team members and other stakeholders…
