Record number of managers seeking help for stress and anxiety. Hybrid and flexible working arrangements too hard
According to Christina Foxwell, a life and business coach and self-help author, flexible and hybrid working arrangements may be good for employees, but they are proving nearly impossible for most managers and business owners to cope with.
I have been working with managers, executives, business owners and board members all across the country and the globe for many years helping them to hone their leadership style and overcome career and workplace challenges, and I have never seen things so bad.
I am being contacted daily by business executives wanting help to cope with difficult organisational issues and management challenges.
Basically, managers are finding it nearly impossible to manage staff remotely and to maintain cohesion and workplace culture with staff straddling work from home and hybrid working arrangements.
This article has so many red flags. Clearly showing managers have a pointless role and aren’t needed because people can get their work done without being micromanaged and makes amazing employees leave. If the work is getting done what is the issue? It’s all been proven that people worked harder at home because less distractions, better concentration and flow, the only issue was they had no boundaries with work time, breaks, clocking off etc. and saying a work life balance is an excuse? Weren’t we all just talking about about having better work life balances, “mental health is so important” conversations. And the whole connection part, never heard of the internet? Chat? Zoom? It’s 2022, the best connections I’ve ever made was over the internet. The constant distractions in an office environment, I do 50% less because everyone wants to go for coffee, have a chat, laugh, giggle. that is not connection, that is a waste of time.
I feel this article is trying to bait me. A few things:
1) if you can’t figure out how to forge connections without someone standing beside me, in the year 2022, that’s on you. Do you suffer from object permanence?
2) managers referred to here don’t seem to have well-founded, well-documented evidence that people in flexible working arrangements are underperforming. They do seem to have trust issues. Did they hire the wrong people? Or are they themselves the wrong people?
3) the hand-wringing about flexibility is baloney. Managers can and do accommodate many things: childcare and other caring responsibilities, pregnancy, disability and more. Say it with your chest: you don’t want to accommodate flexible work in the pandemic because you don’t think it’s a legitimate reason.
4) lol
the real question here is who cares? – this article implies the managers involved didn’t care about the wellbeing of their staff until they had no choice and were forced to capitulate to their needs. now executives say they’re unhappy that they’re being treating like an employee and not an authority…
the obvious lesson here is that organisations and managers need to reduce pressure on their staff, and set more reasonable targets – then they’ll be less stressed.
I wonder how many of those over-stressed managers are those that have been promoted before they were ready, and are also having to do a large part of their previous role at the same time due to the well documented talent shortage?