Multimodal management: Expectations in the hybrid workforce
When teams are spread across multiple locations and on modalities, leaders can be challenged to ensure that everyone has the same information, especially when frequent updates or changes are common
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By Prof. Richard Smith
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any organisations have adopted hybrid models of work that allow employees to perform their jobs remotely for portions of the work week. These new “Hybrid” practices allow flexibility and have quickly become the new normal in some industries. Recently, I joined a gathering with several emerging managers in California to discuss trends associated with hybrid work-life. Like many industries, the tech, bio-tech, professional services, and other sectors have embraced new flexible work practices. My interactions quickly uncovered that firms, especially those that rely on young professional talent, are dealing with intuitional management memory gaps – along with two years of | July 2022
management development disruption. What that means in real terms, is that in some organizations 25% of the workforce has no idea what the workplace or people management was like in the pre-pandemic world of work. As I delve into the emerging research finding, I note that this institutional memory gap takes different forms. For some of these young professionals who graduated from university during the pandemic, the concept of going to the office for physical meetings seems a bit odd. This is a stark contrast to the 20-year veteran leaders who expect employees to flock back into the offices and fill conference room spaces just like 2019. On the other hand, supervisors with five to seven years of experi-
ence are caught in the middle trying to blend the best of both worlds and are forced to develop their own approaches to managing multiple modes of working across physical and virtual locations. This memory gap is coupled with a shift in work mode expectations, which is a phenomenon created in the wake of COVID-19. When a significant phenomenon effects a population that causes behaviour or expectation changes (e.g. World War II, Great Depression, etc.) we call this impact a “Cohort Effect.” This pandemic induced shift to a multi-modal approach to management is a cohort effect as it has altered the expectations of workforces in many industries. While we recognise this change and see the
