Guest editorial: When digitalization drives workplace changes: managerial challenges in hybrid work

• Date: 16 August 2024
• Pages: 197-199
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/IJWHM-06-2024-233
• Published date: 16 August 2024
• Subject Matter: Health & social care,Healthcare management,HR & organizational behaviour,Human resource policy,Employee welfare
• Author: Christine Ipsen,Kathrin Kirchner

Guest editorial:

When digitalization drives

workplace changes: managerial

challenges in hybrid work

Workplaces worldwide allow for more flexibility with hybrid work facilitated by digital

technologies and consequently introduce new ways of working and management. These

changes disrupt processes and systems that influence employees’and managers’behaviors,

attitudes and well-being. Consequently, there is concern about how digitalization affects

managers’jobs, performance and well-being. It is well established that managers drive and

have an impact on successful interventions (Helland et al., 2021) but also that changes in

managerial work imply issues and challenges for managers (Foster et al., 2019), where their

role evolves in tandem with the changes (Ipsen et al., 2018).

Although employees and managers function differently and telework affects both actors,

much of the current telework literature focuses solely on the advantages and disadvantages

from the employee perspective, where only a few studies show that managers were more

challenged than employees (Hassard and Morris, 2022;Kirchner et al., 2021).

To address this concern, this special issue called for a deeper understanding of managers’

experiences with digitalization and workplace health management in times of hybrid and

remote work –the new ways of working. It focuses on the changes introduced in the

managerial role and raises several questions about how managers across organizational

levels experience the transition and how it affects their well-being and mental health. It also

explores the organizational capabilities needed to support managers and what individual

capabilities managers should possess in this transition.

The papers included in this special issue address a gap in the existing literature, as only a

few studies focus on the challenges for managers during the transition to new ways of

working. The included research creates a pathway for the exploration of the advantages and

disadvantages of hybrid work when acting in a management role as a distance manager. This

special issue thus aims to highlight and synthesize the experiences of managers’well-being

when workplaces digitize work and explore how these experiences can be redefined and

embedded into how management jobs are redesigned and how that can be supported.

In the first article, “‘I have to be always on’–managerial role and experience of work-life

balance and regeneration practices during remote work,”Mikołajczyk, Molek-Winiarska and

Kleszewski explore the impact of remote work and the use of information and communication

technology (ICT) on the work-life balance of managers. The findings reveal that managers

struggle with blurred boundaries between work and personal life due to the “always on”

culture perpetuated by ICT. Despite the flexibility offered by remote work, managers

experience work-life imbalance, with work encroaching on personal time, leading to a

constant workload and impaired recovery. The study suggests the need for systemic change,

including raising managers’awareness of their impact on subordinates and promoting a

culture of well-being. It emphasizes the importance of offline activities for recovery and the

need for clear organizational guidance on ICT use to clarify social norms and prevent the

negative consequences of being constantly connected.

In the second article, “The level of burnout and cognitive stress in managers when

teleworking: the impact of psychosocial safety climate and the mediating role of demand-

control-support,”Omorede and Berglund discuss that while teleworking can reduce stressors

and improve work-life balance, it can also lead to increased burnout and cognitive stress

International

Journal of

Workplace Health

Management

197

InternationalJournal of Workplace

Health Management

Vol. 17 No. 3, 2024

pp. 197-199

© Emerald Publishing Limited

1753-8351

DOI 10.1108/IJWHM-06-2024-233

IJWHM ▪IJWHM-06-2024-233_proof ▪14 August 2024 ▪8:15 am