Study highlights managers’ role in telework success

Amazon has announced that it will end remote work for its office staff starting in January 2025. A decision that seems to go against the current, as the increasing pace of digitalization since the recent pandemic has marked a turning point for teleworking. Prior to the 2020 health crisis, this form of working was practically unimaginable for many companies but, since then, its presence has continued to grow in importance.

According to the Adecco Employment Opportunities and Satisfaction Monitor, produced by The Adecco Group Institute, telework in Spain increased by 19% in 2023, with more than 3 million people working remotely. This is more than double the number of employees doing so in 2019, i.e., before the COVID health crisis.

Working remotely is a concept that, no matter how much it grew with the pandemic and stabilized at a higher level afterwards, has not always generated a consensus. Sometimes companies have resisted implementing teleworking, which involves a number of challenges, such as the types of jobs for which it should be used, the use of technological resources, and communication between the different members of teams.

One hurdle is the management teams, whose job it is to establish whether teleworking is a good fit with the company’s operations; this strategic decision depends largely on them. A study by the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) surveyed 186 people (most over the age of 45 and almost 45% of them women) from different European countries to establish the determining factors for managers in the implementation of teleworking in their companies.

The research, published in the journal Human Resources Management and Services, found that managers’ opinions of teleworking can make all the difference in its implementation in organizations. The study was carried out by Josep Lladós, Prof. Antoni Meseguer, Eva Rimbau and Mar Sabadell, members of teaching and research staff at the UOC’s Faculty of Economics and Business and of the Digital Business Research Group (DigiBiz). It indicates not only the key skills managers need in order to create a suitable context for teleworking, but also the aspects to be borne in mind to drive change.

The most important aspects for convincing managers

This research arose from the hypothesis that managers are the key to establishing and promoting teleworking in organizations. More specifically, it is essential that their perceptions of teleworking are positive and that they believe they have the necessary skills to lead teleworking teams.

According to the study, for managers, an inclination to adopt teleworking stems mainly from the perception that it will be useful for the organization and, at the same time, easy to implement. The first factor that affects their perception of the usefulness of teleworking is the impact they expect it to have on work performance.

“Managers can gauge the improvement in work performance with indicators such as the number of tasks carried out, the meeting of targets, the quality of the work delivered, absenteeism, etc. Although it’s difficult to objectively measure the impact of teleworking on efficiency and productivity, managers’ positive perception around how it affects their tasks impacts their perception of its usefulness,” said Eva Rimbau.

The skills needed to successfully lead remote work

As the study indicates, the implementation of teleworking in companies depends not only on managers’ views of their workers and the implications of usefulness or work performance, but also on their perception of themselves—that is, their own ability to take this type of work on board—and their relationship with employees.

“It’s essential that managers trust workers and manage their teams on the basis of outcomes or goals, not attendance or the number of hours worked,” explained Rimbau. The result is a “virtuous circle”: greater trust, greater potential for achieving positive outcomes and, in the case of workers, proactively taking on more duties to meet workloads.

The lack of face-to-face contact and coordination-related difficulties are some of the challenges faced by managers when implementing teleworking. This is why, as the research shows, managers’ confidence in their abilities to manage and supervise a group remotely is extremely important.

In addition, as Rimbau pointed out, to achieve this self-perception “managers must develop skills to build, motivate, recognize and hold teams accountable in a teleworking environment, using digital tools to communicate and interact effectively. They must avoid professional isolation, foster collaboration and trust, and adapt leadership and supervision to the digital context.” Workers need not just “bosses,” but leaders capable of fostering teamwork in any type of work situation.

The need for an appropriate context

Managers’ predisposition to implement teleworking is also affected by the surrounding influences, “such as pressure from peers and superiors and compatibility with the organizational culture,” Rimbau acknowledged. If a company’s senior management, or larger benchmark corporations in the industry, support teleworking, people in management roles will be more predisposed to adopt it.

Another key factor in adopting teleworking is the ability of managers to lead change, but, as the researcher pointed out, “the more digital and knowledge-based a company’s activities are, the easier it will be to adopt teleworking broadly and successfully.”

Technological barriers can have an impact on implementation, so it is essential that both workers and company possess the appropriate resources and that they digitize their processes and ways of working.