The line manager recrafted for hybrid working

Line managers were arguably the most disenfranchised during the forced pandemic-instigated rush to working from home (WFH). Regularly placed between the senior management and the frontline, line managers played a critical communication conduit, typically being in day-to-day, face-to-face contact with senior management and their direct reports on the frontline.

This was brought home to me when chatting with a casual contact at my local gym. She held a line management role at a local government council. She bemoaned the whole WFH situation and couldn’t wait to get back to the more familiar office environment. It’s not that she lacked digital skills. She complained; “I’m sending messages to my staff all the time; they are just not responding to me!”. Playing the “digital working specialist”, I enquired about the nature of her team. Perhaps they were interacting with each other and getting on just fine without needing to call on the boss. After all, they were getting messages directly from the senior management now, sometimes on a daily basis. She replied:

“No, they all have their individual jobs to do and work with their stakeholders independently. I was their link to what was going on at the higher up levels. I guess I am really the mother hen!”

Line managers enhanced their digital skills during the pandemic

In our recent Microsoft 365 Benchmarking Report we assessed the digital working competencies of leaders, compared with non-leaders. Digital competency was assessed using SWOOP’s Seven Collaboration Habits performance, calculated from each individual’s digital interactions on Microsoft 365.

We selected a “leaders” grouping based on their job title. The key words we chose for their selection included:

“Leader”,”Supervisor”,”Manager”,”Managing”,”Lead”,”Partner”,”Principal”,”Director”,”Executive” and ”Head”.

Some 12,613 staff were classified as “leaders”, leaving the remaining 36,586 as “non-leaders”. What we found was gratifying:

Leaders were demonstrating digital collaboration habits capability 25% higher than those of non-leaders. Additionally, the scores against each of the collaboration habits varied less for leaders, which is a sign of more consistent practice. We had speculated that pre-pandemic office-bound managers might have had less motivation to build their digital communication skills. Whether this was the case or not, today their digital collaboration competencies are well above average.

What has changed with the move to hybrid working

Digital-first working has definitely changed the nature of communications across organisations. The drip feed through line management layers has been replaced by more direct top to bottom communications. We reported this effect in our 2020 Yammer Benchmarking Report, where CEOs were taking to Yammer to engage with staff on a daily basis, during the critical transition to WFH.  

The loss of co-location of organisational groups creates a new challenge for their line management leaders. Hybrid adds the complication that groups will be only partially represented in the office, while others may choose to WFH; increasing the risk of proximity bias for managers.  

Our M365 Benchmarking Study analysed 3,773 groups from the M365 active directories of 18 organisations. We calculated each group’s Seven Collaboration Habits performance by averaging the performances of its members. We also noted the group size and calculated the variance (standard deviation) of each group, to assess how they might predict group performance. While group size was inversely correlated with groups performance (smaller the groups the higher the collaborative habits performance) the biggest predictor by far was the level of variation in the group i.e. large differences in digital collaboration habits.

It’s not a surprise the best performing groups are unified in the way they collaborate, with all members demonstrating superior digital collaboration habits performance. Our results were validated when we approached selected benchmarked high performing groups to solicit their stories. Their stories were truly inspiring, with the majority agreeing to share their case studies in our report.

This result sends a signal to the line managers. Helping to unify your groups around best practice digital collaboration habits, will have the biggest influence on hybrid working collaboration performance.

How should line management adapt to hybrid working?

The following table identifies shifts in line management behaviours required to be effective in the hybrid working era:

Pre-pandemic line manager behaviour	Hybrid working line manager behaviour
Call face-to-face group meetings to assure alignment with organisational goals and setting group objectives.	Schedule an online meeting. But distribute relevant input information beforehand. Develop the agenda around the discussion of potentially contentious issues. Meet face-to-face to socialise and onboard new team members.
Scheduling regular face-to-face meetings with staff members to discuss progress and any issues.	Aim to minimise, or remove, recurring meetings aimed at status updates. These should be shared in group online discussions.
Monitoring staff resources to ensure that shortfalls can be addressed.	Hybrid working requires co-ordination of required synchronous contact time. Identify these points of required synchronisation and ensure affected staff are available, either online or in the office.
Ensuring that policies and procedures are complied with. Enact corrective intervention where required.	Your organisation will likely be developing new hybrid working policies (see this example from Microsoft). Your responsibilities will now extend to cover hybrid working policies and procedures.
Providing structure and direction to their groups.	Hybrid working will require a more formal digital infrastructure, supporting group interactions. Ensure digital infrastructure is established to reflect the desired group structure and processes.
Be the model of behaviour that reflects the desired organisational culture. Be a source of motivation and purpose for the group.	In-office role modelling must now be conducted online as well. Being a role model for best practice digital collaboration will be one of the most important aspects for group performance, moving into hybrid working.

Perhaps being the “mother hen” might be even more relevant with hybrid work. Sustaining inclusiveness and avoiding proximity bias will be critical. Ensuring your group is demonstrating excellent digital collaboration habits in its interactions with others will go a long way to demonstrating your own leadership qualities in a hybrid working world.