NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 MANAGEMENT
home-working culutre is trust
between managers and staff ”
The relationship
between
managers and
employees is
changing
who don’t have a safe, happy home environment.
For them, coming to work gives them a break
from home – whether that’s caring for elderly
relatives or being in a diffi cult relationship. The
psychological impact of working from home can
be signifi cant for a lot of people.”
A changing relationship
For managers, the shift towards home working
has brought with it a whole new level of required
skills – many of which will never have been
needed before. “Previously, you could just be
a manager and concentrate on making sure
everyone got their work done,” says Kibble.
“However, now that everyone is at home, all of
a sudden the line is a bit more blurred. We can
now all see into colleagues’ living rooms and hear
their kids in the background, so it’s not enough
for managers to focus solely on work. We’re all
bringing our managers into our homes, every
day, which drastically changes our relationship
with them. For some managers, it will be very
uncomfortable to suddenly have this personal
relationship with their teams.”
In many ways, the events of the pandemic
have acted like a large-scale social experiment,
with companies, management teams and
employees having to act quickly to adapt to the
new circumstances we all fi nd ourselves in. Some
have done this better than others. Even within
manufacturing, diff erent companies and sectors
will be better prepared for this, thanks to their
diff ering management styles.
“Some industries are very old-school, with an
older, more traditional management style,” says
Kibble. “Those sectors will struggle with this new
way of working and the new demands of staff .
“There’s also a generational diff erence to be
aware of, in terms of working and management
styles,” Kibble continues. “The Baby Boomer
generation may push back against remote working
as they’ve been brought up in a culture of ‘if
we can’t see you working 9-5, then you’re not
doing your job’. They often assume that ‘home
working’ means people are slacking off or going
out for lunch when they should be sat at their
desks. It’s an old-school style of management.
The newer generations, Gen Y and Gen Z, are
more demanding of a work-life balance and
fl exibility. They’re more au fait with how to utilise
technology to maximise their working.”
Underlying the new management style,
says Kibble, is one word: trust. “The most
important thing to guarantee a successful
home-working culture is a trusting relationship
between managers and their staff . Staff have to
feel confi dent that they can talk openly when
things aren’t going well or they’re struggling,
for whatever reason. They also have to be able
to say that they can’t work from home, and
their manager will help them. On the other end,
managers have to trust that their teams will get
on with what’s expected of them. If that trust
isn’t there, both ways, then there will never be a
successful arrangement.”
“The most important way
to guarantee a successful
Employee habits
While managers have had to
change their behaviours and
become more adept at ‘softer’
skills, their staff have also had to
uphold their end of the bargain.
This means working productively
when they are supposed to, but
also stopping work and taking
regular breaks during the day.
Managers must still monitor
performance, says Kibble, but
it’s important to be aware of
mitigating circumstances for
any drop in output.
“There are lots of reasons
why performance and
productivity may drop while
working from home; it doesn’t
necessarily mean they’re sitting
and watching TV all day,” she
says. “Similarly, there’s been a
huge assumption that everyone
has the right equipment and
decent Wi-Fi at home, but
a lot of people will be on
limited packages or won’t have
the bandwidth to be able to
do video calls or download
large fi les, or don’t have a
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