Managers Are Changing Their Minds About the Hybrid Work Model

New study shows growing acceptance of remote employees

A recent study at the University of Birmingham, which surveyed 597 managers, has shed light on how managers’ attitudes toward the hybrid work model have changed as a result of the pandemic. Surprisingly, the findings reveal an increasingly positive outlook on the benefits of remote and flexible working.

The study found that 52 percent of managers agreed that working from home improves concentration, 60 percent said it improves productivity, and 63 percent stated it increases motivation. This is a significant shift in attitude because there has long been a perception that working from home can be a distraction, leading to a lack of productivity and motivation.

The study also revealed that more than seven in 10 (73%) managers felt that giving employees flexibility over their working hours increased productivity, while 60 percent said the same for working from home. This suggests that managers are starting to recognize that giving employees more control over when and where they work can lead to better performance.

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Much ado about nothing.

Your thesis is that "Managers Are Changing Their Minds About the Hybrid Work Model." Your evidence appears to be a single study whose findings could be summed up as: since 2020, about half of managers have had positive things to say about hybrid work models.

The only time you report an actual change (because they're changing their minds), it is a modest change of five percentage points:

"When it comes to the future of remote and flexible working, the study found that 55 percent of managers said roles would be advertised as available for flexible working, compared with 50 percent reporting this in 2020. This indicates that organizations are becoming more open to the idea of flexible working and are beginning to see it as a long-term solution rather than a temporary measure."

How can a five percentage point difference on a survey result "indicate" anything about organizations? [edit: Agresti-Coull 95% interval estimates would have changed from 46-54% to 51-59%. You tell me.]

Looking at the cited executive summary, I found a bullet point that lays out some data over time: "Pre-pandemic (pre-2020) 43.3% of managers believed long hours were needed for employees to advance in the organisation. During the lockdowns this decreased to 38.7% (2020) and 35.2% (2021). Now, 41.9% believe that in order to advance in the organisation employees need to work long hours."

Plot these data on a run chart and then honestly tell me that they say anything at all.

Lastly, from looking at the study report itself, I found that the managers surveyed are not the same managers every time. Why were fewer managers surveyed each time? (742 in 2020, 631 in 2021, 597 in 2022) During this same time period, Western governments of every size and shape went out of their way to destroy people's livelihoods and businesses with draconian overreach. I would have to wonder if survivorship bias has anything to do with the apparent result, except I don't have to, because the apparent result is so weak as to barely say anything at all.

I love a flexible job as much as the next guy, but this is trade publication for people who eat data for a living. If you can't tell your story with a compelling data graphic, I am immediately suspicious, and the proliferation of "statistics as sentences" is a dead giveaway that this is more spin than substance.