Written by By Stephanie Diana Eubank
Several articles on companies speaking out about wanting to force workers to come back to the office regardless of current COVID and Monkey Pox surges. In one most recent article from JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon, Tsipursky (2022); commented on not wanting to allow for remote work anymore. The arguments used are the same that have been made since the 1980s, which are still moot as COVID taught us that remote workers are just as productive at home as in the office. While some organizations have leadership that is set in their ways, there is a real enemy of remote work, and it isn’t the corporations as one would think.
The real enemy of remote work is middle management. And there are five reasons why middle management is so against remote workers.
- Remote work means middle managers must do additional work to help the team bond.
In remote workplaces, team bonding can be strained by geographical location and the strain of COVID. The bonding in a team, be it remote or in-person, requires managers to facilitate and allow for some conversation and socializing among employees. Business, after all, is a social science. However, in a remote workplace, managers at all levels need to help facilitate collaboration and social interactions with team members.
The remote workplace makes that a harder job for managers because, in onsite workplaces, people bump into each other or participate in office functions which lower the work managers must do directly. Low socialization among remote workers can hinder morale and employee loyalty. This is detailed in the Harvard Business article; Heskett (2021) notes all the ways remote work changes the work style for middle managers. Thus, contributing to employees feeling the need to look for greener pastures in this Great Resignation world that the business arena is in.
- Middle managers must use qualitative and quantitative analysis to properly measure productivity in remote work.
With onsite workplaces, employers and middle managers can use physical observations with whatever method they use to measure Key Performance Indicators, otherwise known as KPIs. However, in a remote workplace, the physical observation is gone, and middle managers. As detailed in Jordan (2022), remote leaders rely on communications tools like Microsoft Teams and Slack. As seen in the book Teams for Dummies, Rosemarie (2021); (and found on this link https://amzn.to/3KoSSZZ), the system was not designed to monitor productivity. It was designed to aid in remote communications. As a person who has used Teams in the workplace, the system has flaws, such as unless the app is open on one’s computer and the mouse constantly moves over it, then it only reads someone as available if they are using teams actively. No one is using Teams or any communication system that much. It would mean the person being available isn’t using any other program on the computer. Also, several users complain that when using the app on their phone, even showing availability on the app, the computer version reads away. Even when someone is using both apps simultaneously at one’s desk.
This makes it so employees either are marked against them for lack of attendance or get anti-boss ware devices like these:
Management being unaware or choosing not to recognize how these systems are not designed to monitor productivity is hurting morale and encouraging what is called “Slow Quitting,” contributing to the Great Resignation. To keep employee retention up, middle management managers must find quantitative and qualitative methods to display remote employees’ work. This means managers must look at the quality of work and the macro and micro view of managing productivity in a remote workplace. There are methods for that, but there is math involved. I recommend reading Pullan (2022), which can be found on Amazon at https://amzn.to/3pOgPQL .
- Remote work makes it so that middle managers cannot just be managers anymore they must be producing.
In the past, within remote workplaces, middle management has been able to just work on the operational duties of management. As detailed in Kelly (2021), managers do not enjoy remote workplaces because now they are forced to be producing managers instead of just focusing on leadership. Requiring all managers to lead by example and creating a need to change leadership tactics known as X Theory Leadership style. X Theory Leadership often takes the form of an aggressive, results-driven method using fear in what is called Y theory leadership. Y Theory Leadership is leading authentically as oneself with humility and empathy. Being in the trenches and working shoulder to shoulder digitally with one’s team based on research data often also creates the dynamic of shared leadership. And for many X theory leaders, that’s the only arrow in their quiver as they are often taught to lead by promotion for being, say, the best sales rep in the region, which is not a leadership qualification. Knowing how to manage the work and understand people is. This is a concept learned in business coursework. Which is a big reason why business schools and business instructors like me exist.
- Remote work makes middle managers obsolete.
Shared Leadership, as defined in Han & Hazard (2022), is where teams develop autonomy and thus create a leadership dynamic within the group that all members contribute. This often happens in remote teams and within remote workplaces.
Shared leadership is often mixed up with a term called group thinks. Groupthink is where no original ideas happen because the group starts to develop the same opinion on the same topics. Basically, the embodiment of the commercial from the 90s with beloved comedian Robin Williams as the Genie stating, “Great minds think alike. Wrong! Great minds think for themselves”. Everyone thinks alike within the group and cannot think for themselves. Often this phenomenon is created when leaders lead with fear or hire only toxic positivity or Yes people to their teams.
Shared Leadership makes it so that each person is responsible for their contribution. The team joins forces without a designated leader, takes responsibility, and reaches out to one another for assistance. In a nutshell, they collaborate fully and don’t have an assigned leader. This is bad news for middle management cause then they aren’t necessarily needed. If everyone is sharing leadership, a manager producing or not is required.
- Remote workers endanger their higher income, which is unneeded.
Lastly, the biggest reason middle management doesn’t push for more remote work comes from the brass tax. Money. See, if shared leadership develops in remote work and corporations move away from the upward management ladder model, then there is no reason to pay managers more than the pay of those doing the work. According to the Washington Post article by McGregor (2021), in the United States, firms pay between 5%-20% more to managers than employees to middle management. Senior management has a bigger gap of 7.9 times what a middle manager makes. Leaders could use that money to further compensate teams if there were no middle managers or need for them. Which would drastically lower their potential income.
Conclusion: Remote work has already shaken up the world as we know it. However, remote work is not done, changing how we do everything. It will change how we design leadership dynamics and planning in the business arena and how we bond with each other. So, many leaders scream to the mountains that they want everything to return to normal. But business is meant to evolve and change, just like any concept in nature. Business as a function will shift. How many middle managers will be left in the dust for want of rising to the occasion?
Work Cited
Han, S. J., & Hazard, N. (2022). Shared leadership in virtual teams at work: Practical strategies and research suggestions for human resource development. Human Resource Development Review, 153448432210933. https://doi.org/10.1177/15344843221093376
Website https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/15344843221093376
Heskett, J. (2021, March 1). What does remote work mean for middle managers? HBS Working Knowledge. Retrieved August 27, 2022, from https://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/what-does-remote-work-mean-for-middle-managers
Jordan, R. (2022, April 20). Mastering digital leadership in the remote work environment. Smarter Business Review. Retrieved August 27, 2022, from https://www.ibm.com/blogs/services/2022/03/08/mastering-digital-leadership-in-the-remote-work-environment/
Kelly, J. (2021, March 19). How CEOS and workers feel about working remotely or returning to the Office. Forbes. Retrieved August 27, 2022, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2021/03/19/how-ceos-and-workers-feel-about-working-remotely-or-returning-to-the-office/?sh=51bbd9a29d99
McGregor, J. (2021, December 5). The income gap between bosses and workers is getting even bigger. The Washington Post. Retrieved August 27, 2022, from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2015/03/13/the-income-gap-between-bosses-and-workers-is-getting-even-bigger-worldwide/
Pullan, P. (2022). Virtual leadership practical strategies for success with remote or hybrid work and teams. Kogan Page.
Rosemarie, W. (2021). Microsoft Teams for dummies. John Wiley Sons Inc.
Tsipursky, G. (2022, August 23). Commentary: Here’s what JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon got wrong–and Meta got right–about remote work. Fortune. Retrieved August 27, 2022, from https://fortune.com/2022/08/23/what-jp-morgan-ceo-jamie-dimon-got-wronga-meta-remote-work-diversity-careers-gleb-tsipursky/
Dr. Stephanie Diana Eubank DBA Remote Team Research (AKA Dr. Bear) 