A millennial manager skills model for the new remote work environment

Experience and Impact of COVID-19 on a Newly Formed Rural University Medical Office: Survey Study

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic had large social effects, particularly in the fields of medicine and medical education. Medical organizations in the United States operate in overlapping contexts with interrelated goals inside multiple organizations, and the context of work strongly influenced how organizations were able to respond to COVID-19 restrictions.

OBJECTIVE

This research examines the experience and impact of COVID-19 on the implementation of a Health Resources and Services Administration grant in a newly formed university medical office with the interrelated goals of health policy, health outreach, and medical education. The goal is to understand how COVID-19 created different experiences and challenges for leaders and their collaborators working in medical education compared to those working in public health outreach or health policy.

METHODS

A survey about COVID-19 opportunities and challenges was administered to work unit leaders and their project collaborators. The most common experiences and challenges are shown, direct educational and other respondents' experiences and challenges are compared, and open-ended comment segments are analyzed.

RESULTS

Helping others adjust to digital work, remoteness, and coordination were common experiences during COVID-19. Common challenges include coordination and an inability to make comparisons to previous program years. On average, respondents had 11.3 (SD 7.8) experiences and 8.3 (SD 6.9) challenges considered in the survey. While all units were influenced by COVID-19 restrictions, medical education units had more experiences and challenges. Those involved directly in medical education experienced 69% (18.6/27) of their possible experiences and 54% (14.7/27) of their possible challenges on average compared to 35% (7/20) and 21% (4.2/20) among other respondents (P<.001). COVID-19 restrictions increased the complexity of project work and presented challenges, especially in terms of coordinating responses and access to locations.

CONCLUSIONS

The findings suggest that COVID-19 made the overall administration of programs more complex and drew attention from other medical and public health programs. While remoteness is appropriate for some medical education tasks, it is less appropriate for clinical learning. Remoteness presents an especially large challenge to clinical education. Employees now have expectations for remoteness to be built into programs and workplaces. Program administrators will have to integrate remoteness' benefits and drawbacks into their organization for the foreseeable future.

At your service: supportiveness of servant leadership, communication frequency and communication channel fostering job satisfaction across generations

Introduction

The present study contributes to the conversations on the role of 'autonomy supportive' factors in employee wellbeing in remote work contexts by examining the relationships between servant leadership, communication frequency - overall and via synchronous (i.e., individual video-calls, individual telephone calls) and asynchronous communication channels (i.e., e-mail messages, and WhatsApp) - on the one hand, and job satisfaction, on the other, and the moderating role of generation (Baby Boomers and Gen X versus Gen Y) in these relationships.

Method

Building on self-determination theory, incorporating insights from servant leadership, telework, and media richness and synchronicity literatures, we developed hypotheses that were tested via multilevel analysis (273 employees nested in 89 managers).

Results

In line with expectations, servant leadership had a positive relationship with job satisfaction. Total communication frequency, however, was not related to job satisfaction. Further analyses per communication channel showed that only level 2 e-mail communication frequency was positively related to job satisfaction. In contrast to expectations, the relationships studied were not moderated by generation.

Discussion

We concluded that, for all generations, both servant leadership and frequent (e-mail) communication can be regarded as 'autonomy supportive' factors in employee wellbeing. Paradoxically, whereas servant leadership, considered as a human-centric leadership style, suggests close trust-based employment relationships, employees valued frequent asynchronous communication (via e-mail). Having access to information and knowledge when needed may satisfy employees' need for autonomy (and perhaps for flexibility to engage in work and non-work activities). The insights gained in our study can inform organizations, managers, and employees, particularly in future remote work contexts.

Evaluation of organisational culture dimensions and their change due to the pandemic

The purpose of this research is to determine whether the Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the change of organisational culture in public high schools. Additionally, if there has been a change in organisational culture, to what extent does this change differ from the preferred type? Cameron and Quinn's OCAI questionnaire was used to determine the types of organisational culture. 453 valid responses were obtained from teachers of randomly selected public secondary schools in all regions of the Czech Republic. Pre-Covid-19, the present and preferred status were assessed. It was found that initially hierarchy culture was predominant, while currently preferences for adhocracy and market culture have increased significantly, although the hierarchy type still prevails. In the type of future, respondents will see the clan of organisational culture. The shift in each type, but also in each of its dimensions in the three periods studied, provides the researcher with a theme for deeper research into the context, and for school institutions and principals to develop strategies to support the creation of a healthy organisational culture.

A Maturity Model for Intraorganizational Online Collaboration

The capability to collaborate successfully within and between organizational units using online media supports organizations in addressing the increasing complexity of work tasks of knowledge workers. However, organizations are struggling to develop and sustain their intraorganizational online collaboration (IOC) capabilities organization-wide. Hence, holistic approaches to effectively manage this capability are needed. This paper addresses this problem by introducing a maturity model for intraorganizational online collaboration. The model builds on related maturity models and research of the domain. In a four-round ranking-type Delphi study, essential capability areas for IOC were identified and refined, and a general maturation path was developed. Compared to related maturity models, the presented maturity model addresses the specific domain focus of online collaboration within an organization from an organization-wide perspective. The model provides a framework for design elements for intraorganizational online collaboration and a highly reliable general maturation path.

Can innovative work behaviour spur creativity while working remotely? The role of work–home conflict and social isolation

Purpose

During the COVID-19 pandemic, huge numbers of employees shifted to remote working, with various consequences for their family and working lives. This study aims to focus on the factors that affect their creativity while working from home. As individual creativity is shaped by context, the authors investigate the moderating role of the domestic environment on employees’ creative contributions while working remotely.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors base the arguments on the complexity perspective on innovative work behaviour (IWB) and consider innovation a recursive process in which innovative behaviour can inform, and not simply follow, subsequent creative acts. The sudden spur of the pandemic interrupted the natural recursiveness of the creativity–innovation process and allowed them to empirically investigate the direct and indirect effects that levels of pre-pandemic IWB had on individuals’ creative behaviour. The authors hypothesise that this relationship is moderated by two resource-conserving contextual factors: work–home conflict and a feeling of social isolation. The participants were 803 employees from several Italian corporations. The data were collected during the first lockdown period (April–May 2020).

Findings

The findings support the existence of a three-way interaction, suggesting that IWB affects further creative behaviours when both work–home conflict and social isolation are low.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that investigates what happened to employees’ creativity during the COVID-19 massive remote working situation. The results should be interpreted beyond the unique context because remote working will continue.

Examining the role of team climate, transactive memory system, and team leader humility in teams: an empirical study of Indian generational cohorts

Purpose

The study aims to define the term “generation” by proposing an integrated design based on age-period-cohort effects and by proposing an Indian generational cohort framework categorizing Indian generational cohorts into four categories, namely, Baby Boomers, GenX, GenY, and GenZ. The study further aimed to capture the existing generational differences between GenY and GenZ cohorts in the Indian teams on team climate, transactive memory system, and team leader humility.

Design/methodology/approach

For the first two objectives a literature review methodology along with the author's proposition was adopted. An integrated design was proposed by reviewing the relevant sociological literature to define generations. Thereafter, an Indian cohort framework was proposed categorizing them into four groups Baby Boomers, GenX, GenY, and GenZ. Following that, for the last objective, i.e. to identify the differences between cohorts, empirical data were collected by a structured questionnaire that was disseminated to GenY and GenZ Indian working professionals. A total of 229 responses were used for observing the differences or similarities between GenY and GenZ cohorts on the study variables by employing an independent samples t-test.

Findings

The study proposed an integrated design (age, period, and cohort effect). Following that, an Indian generational cohort's framework has been outlined categorizing Indian cohorts based on their birth years, age groups, developmental stages, formative years, major Indian historical events, and various characteristics possessed by them. Moreover, the empirical findings support the existing generational disparities and depict that GenZ holds a higher inclination towards transactive memory systems and team climate whereas GenY holds more inclination toward leader humility.

Practical implications

The study put forth its contribution to research scholars by categorizing Indian generational cohorts in a rationalized manner based on an integrated design (age-period-cohort) effect. The study would further assist concerned authorities and managers in formulating HR policies to deal with the underlying generational differences highlighted by the study.

Originality/value

As there lies a paucity of generational frameworks in the Indian context, this study is the first attempt in this direction which categorizes Indian generational cohorts based on a unique integrated design including age-period-cohort effects. In addition, the study also investigated these cohorts in Indian organizations to observe the existing variations.