Hybrid Working can Boost Managers’ Sense of Belonging, New Research Finds

Post-Covid hybrid working can have a positive impact on managers’ sense of belonging at work, according to new research from the University of Suffolk.

The prevalence of hybrid working – a form of agile working arrangement which allows employees to work from home or their workplace – has escalated globally since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

However despite assumptions that it could have a negative impact on wellbeing and belonging for managers – who typically have the dual challenge of leading their own teams and reporting to their own bosses – a pilot study led by Dr Laura Reeves, Research Associate at the University of Suffolk with Co-Investigator Professor Clare Rigg, Lancaster University Management School, found managers can still feel that they belong in hybrid working arrangements.

The pilot study featured 22 managers who were interviewed and 19 managers who participated in one of two focus groups.

It found that nearly six in 10 managers (58 per cent) reported that they felt they belonged more to their team compared to others in equivalent managerial roles, while a further 32% reported no change.

The study reported that agile working made managers intentionally improve their communication with staff, as well as improve their work-life balance and help colleagues accept that managers are “only human too”.

The research was supported by £3,996 of research funding from the British Academy of Management (BAM) Transitions 1 grant scheme – one of seven competitive research grant schemes which BAM offers together with its partner-learned societies.

Among the measures managers had instigated were team away days, coffee mornings, and creating informal online spaces for conversations, such as on Microsoft Teams or WhatsApp. In addition, GIFs became a popular and humorous tool used to communicate in these informal online conversations.

One manager said: “Our communication within the team improved massively when we went to remote working because everyone made an effort to communicate.”

Others said that agile working enabled them to create more boundaries that meant they were not expected to always be available or working late.

However, despite the positive boost for managers’ belonging, more than half of the participants in the pilot study said that onboarding new recruits had proved a challenge.

For instance, one participant reported being surprised when they finally met a new employee in person and they were taller than expected, adding: “It was always easier to trust him remotely after that because he does actually exist”.

Dr Laura Reeves, Research Associate at the University of Suffolk who led the study, said: “With agile working placing managers further away from their employees, it would be easy to assume that levels of communication or belonging would decrease, but this study has actually found the opposite, as managers have worked hard to ensure they remain connected.

“Attention to date has largely focused on employees and their sense of wellbeing with little focus on management level. However, it is clear that embedding new starters into an organisation’s culture still presents a challenge.

“As agile and hybrid working remains so prevalent beyond the pandemic, and some firms weigh-up whether to return staff to pre-pandemic arrangements, it is clear this area of research will continue to be an important avenue of study.”

The pilot study featured a total of 28 managers from the East of England – with some working nationally or internationally – who have all had some kind of direct line manager responsibility.

The managers came from a range of organisation sizes from micro to large, and featured a breadth of sectors such as social care, engineering, higher education, insurance, healthcare, law, armed forces and local authorities.

The agile working their organisations employed included hybrid working – where employees work part of the week from home and part from their workplace – as well as flexible working hours and compressed working weeks.

In addition to the headline figures on belonging, the research found that 93 per cent of respondents felt a sense of belonging was important in agile working set-ups, while 96 per cent said they “need to belong” while hybrid working.

That sense of belonging included feeling needed by their workforce, being able to contribute to the organisation’s goals, aligning with the cultural values and ensuring that employees felt a sense of belonging too.

Dr Reeves is now set to pursue a second phase of research exploring the challenges for onboarding new recruits after presenting comprehensive findings at the annual BAM conference 2024.

Organisations are invited to attend a workshop taking place on Wednesday 25 September, while the same workshop will be delivered online on Wednesday 2 October.

Those workshops aim to share the findings of the research in more detail and begin conversations about the future direction of study.

Any organisations or organisational representatives which wish to attend the online workshop can get in touch with Dr Reeves by emailing l.reeves@uos.ac.uk.