Hybrid Work and the Manager Squeeze: Stuck Between Driving Results and Supporting Their Teams

As a professor of Entrepreneurship at Northwestern, I listen to a lot of students pitch their startup ideas. After hearing yet another idea that went along the lines of, “I’m so busy, I need someone to bring me coffee/food/supplies at the library,” I became curious about how my students manage their time and priorities. After some investigation, it became apparent that it wasn’t a time issue, but rather one of prioritization - or the lack thereof. My students were simply doing too much and in doing so, spreading themselves way too thin. No wonder they felt overwhelmed!

Based on those observations, I co-created a class that focused on teaching students these very skills. How to manage your time, how to set priorities, how to create and accomplish your goals. Essentially, thios part of the course taught students how to set up productivity systems to get things done and create the right habits while doing so. 

But that wasn't all. We believed that critical people skills like having difficult conversations, giving and receiving feedback, and being more resilient not only increased the odds of startup success, but also essential skills for career success. This became the bedrock of the course.

As the universe would have it, we launched our class in the Spring of 2020 (talk about serendipity!) where we had the opportunity to teach students to be resilient in the face of the most challenging event in the last century. One that would invariably change and reshape how, when, and where we work. 

Now that we’re coming through to the other side, I find myself fascinated with the changes sweeping the world of work. I’ve always advised my students to seek careers at companies with strong cultures that provide ample opportunities to learn and grow. However, with varying workplace policies available (on-site, hybrid, remote, etc.), my students are making career decisions based on how and where they get to do their work. They are no longer geographically bound. The world is even flatter. 

Curious how companies are navigating this brave new world, I reached out to leaders in HR, Learning & Development and Change Management to understand what they’re doing to recruit, engage, and retain talent. Initially, I wanted to learn about two things: the people initiatives those companies were rolling out to manage the shift to hybrid and the staggering levels of attrition from the Great Resignation. 

In interview after interview, a recurring theme bubbled to the surface: an increased pressure on managers who are now squeezed between upper management’s performance-oriented expectations and the need for support and relief from their direct reports. Given that most of my students aspire to take on leadership positions, I needed to learn more.

Managers Caught in the Middle:

As I spoke with HR leaders, they all emphasized the critical role managers play in rolling out their people initiatives. Not only do they rely on managers to get the message out about these new initiatives, they also expect them to encourage their teams to actively participate. The challenge however is that HR isn’t the only function rolling out new initiatives. Rather, they are one of the many departments doing the exact same thing. Managers are now forced to decide whether to do their day jobs well or to use valuable time to take initiative-oriented trainings like, ‘How to better manage your team remotely.’

Faced with this challenge, one exasperated CHRO remarked, “How can you get a project done well if you’re not managing your team well?” In other words, how do you convince a manager to invest time now in something that pays off over a longer horizon? That by investing time now, their job would be easier in the future - resulting in fewer mistakes, more clarity around roles and responsibilities, and lower team turnover. 

Many leaders I spoke with also mentioned how the need to build trust is more focal than when everyone was at the office. One leader explained, “before Covid, the mentality was - if I can’t see you, you must not be working.” Yet, according to most measures, productivity actually increased during the shift to remote. Emerging from Covid, managers must navigate the tension between employees who feel they’ve earned the right to have more flexibility and leadership’s fears of productivity and cultural loss.

Managers and Their Teams Are Burnt Out:

The last two years have been a struggle for everyone, especially the overworked manager. Yet, the manager role is more critical than ever in a hybrid work environment. They are the connective tissue between company values and the employee day-to-day experience. In hybrid their jobs are significantly more challenging - they have to build connection and trust, grow and develop their team, and hold them accountable for results. And, they have to do this with fewer face-to-face meetings.

As a result, according to a recent Prudential pulse survey, managers today are more than twice as likely to be looking for a new job than individual contributors. The people I spoke with confirmed this trend - attrition at the manager level is up significantly, especially for newer managers. Struggling to combat their own burnout, managers are in no position to support their teams and their team’s struggles with burnout and feeling of disconnection with the company. As a result, everybody suffers. 

Indeed, a recent Work Trend report from Microsoft, showed that nearly three quarters of managers say they lack the influence or resources to make changes on behalf of their team. Instead, they receive inconsistent messaging from their executives as leadership tries to figure out how to meet changing employee expectations while maintaining business performance. Inconsistent messaging, lack of tools and support, and asking for even more - no wonder managers are looking elsewhere.

Where To From Here?

As companies look to train and upskill their managers, they are realizing that traditional training approaches are failing. They aren't designed to address the new working environment or the increased emphasis on the soft skills needed in a hybrid world (e.g. leading with empathy, spotting and supporting burnout, creating connection). According to one leader at a financial services company, “getting the work done isn’t the problem [for managers]. They don’t need training here… What they need is better support and coaching on how to support their teams and build connection.”

To get there, all of the leaders I spoke with want to create content that is bite-sized and more relevant. HR leaders now have access to more data than ever about their employees. Yet, many struggle to use that data to make their initiatives smarter or more relevant for their employees (targeted segmentation).

For example, new managers have different needs than experienced ones. Someone that is fully remote has different needs than someone commuting to the office 5 days a week. Many employees still have to search for content that is relevant to them at their stage in the career journey. Anyone who has tried to find content on a company intranet or LMS system knows how frustrating the experience can be. 

Some of the more progressive companies I spoke with are experimenting with social learning and are trying to figure out how to deliver more personalized content. I believe the next frontier for companies is meeting their employees, especially their managers, where they are and to deliver relevant content to the right employee at the right time. 

In my next round of interviews I plan to explore relevance as a tool for supporting managers. Similar to how digital marketers use ‘smart’ tools to segment and personalize content for their customers to strengthen connection and influence behavior, employers can do the same. I’m collecting stories and best practices from across a wide variety of industries that I will be sharing in a future post. Stay tuned for more!

#hybridwork #managers #coaching #culture #culturechange #behaviorchange #relevance #greatresignation