A millennial manager skills model for the new remote work environment

Abstract

Purpose This paper aims to propose that millennials – those born between 1980 and 1995 – are uniquely impacted by the long-term impact of the pandemic, which has accelerated the work from home movement and exacerbated organizational issues associated with working remotely. Millennials, on the cusp of embarking on important leadership roles in this new remote work environment, pose challenges and opportunities for organizations will that will last long after the pandemic. Design/methodology/approach This paper provides a viewpoint based on a narrative review and on the authors’ professional experiences within organizations. Based upon these findings, this paper has reimagined the Mumford skills model to explore millennial managers in this new remote work, post-pandemic context. The goal of this narrative review was to provide a full picture of the “Millennial manager” and the challenges they face in becoming effective managers, as well as highlight the important strengths they bring to the table. Findings Managers may have challenges regarding job satisfaction, productivity and organizational commitment. The positive factors are millennials prefer flexibility, teamwork and creating a positive work-life balance. The negative side has to do with isolation and the ability to embrace the organization culture in a remote environment. This model shows positive and limiting factors of millennials related to organization effectiveness. The major propositions and model were that millennium managers in this new environment increase interpersonal communication to maintain trust, effective mentoring, resolve strong organizational culture and ensure effective delegation and conflict resolution. Practical implications This study discovered challenges for managers, including developing loyalty and improving employee job satisfaction and organizational commitment. Active listening is necessary for team management to show that all team members are valued irrespective of the work environment. Active listening and empathy will increase social support at work, which improves personal well-being and productivity. Millennials will continue to use their technological skills, their desire for teamwork and their preference for participative management, resulting in becoming an invaluable asset in this era of organizational transformation. The challenge for organizations is to realize the millennial generation possesses many talents and must successfully engage them in the pursuit of organizational goals. Originality/value This paper adds to the body of knowledge regarding millennials in organizations with a specific focus on the new work environment created by the global pandemic. The authors hope that their adapted skills model – the millennial manager skills model – becomes an important resource for articulation this new environment that millennial managers are in and that this model can be further refined and expanded through empirical exploration.

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

“…Furthermore, Indian cohorts rated team climate and team leader humility higher. The findings stand in support of the existing literature, as GenY prefers a healthy work climate, where the engagement from team members could be enhanced to attain the outcome (Jayashree et al, 2019), and a flexible work environment and teamwork motivates them (Camp et al, 2022). Moreover, these findings can be attributed to the Indian work culture, which exhibits collectivism over individualism (Sinha, 1997).…”

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

“…Remote working is here to stay (Camp et al , 2022; Gillet et al , 2022; Wang et al , 2021). As creativity and innovation play a central role in the long-term survival of firms, managers need to find ways to equalise requests from workers for a greater work–life balance (which includes remote working) and the need to sustain the pace of innovation to preserve organisational competitiveness.…”

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

“…The shift to a remote work environment introduced new barriers to inclusion that call for reimagining the contexts and cultures in which individuals are now working. The new remote working environment poses a challenge not only in terms of e-mail traffic, lack of training and infrastructure to support ICT-enabled working, and an absence of appropriate support ( McDowall & Kinman, 2017 ), but also includes developing loyalty and improving employee job satisfaction and organisational commitment ( Camp et al, 2022 ). Completely new ways of working and the psychological burden on education workers are significant.…”