Very indeed.

My hypothesis is that the shift to more WFH has not reduced opportunities for advancement at all but has drastically shifted from one population, who knew how to maximize output from office interactions, to a population that knows how to maximize output from more virtual settings.

People who shine at the coffee machine, at business lunches, who are good at putting pressure on employees who arrive late at their desk, or know how to look efficient in front of a superior during in-presence meetings are completely clueless in how to operate virtual teams efficiently today. There are two possible responses to this: adapt or fight for the mythical "return to normal".

I am actually quite happy that this shift occurred at my company. New managers we didn't expect to be in 2019 have risen from nowhere amongst our ranks and are driving their teams surprisingly well. They are showing great initiative in establishing new processes and finding tools to support their operations, their team morale is generally good, I sincerely believe they are making us better in the long term.

Other managers, mostly late boomers I have to say it, are taking a huge hit to morale. We regularly receive complaints that we don't allow firing employees just because they don't want to come to the office. I actually had a senior manager telling me to f.off because I told him "you are a leader, it's your job to motivate her to come work with you at the office, not ours." I have recommended letting him go since...

One thing is for sure: moving to virtual settings, even partially, is requiring new management skills. I am still thinking this over but I believe managers' self-esteem plays a big role in the transition to virtual settings: many old school managers tend to assume they are successfully managing as long as they can see their employees physically at work during office hours. Whoever comes earlier and stays later is automatically ranked a better employee, even assured promotion, and whoever comes to the office for a meeting is immediately perceived as a better employee than those who joined online. Many managers who don't feel they have physical power over their teams anymore are struggling to regain control.

This approach doesn't work anymore in office settings, especially with qualified workforce. With WFH, there are people who start later, who disconnect earlier, who come back online after dinner, during weekends, who go on long lunches during work days or interrupt their morning for a 9.30am-10.30am workout. From what I see in our books, this doesn't affect our numbers negatively but stresses the hell out some of our managers. I am seeing a lot more flexibility in my employees than in my managers, which is somehow ironic!

To conclude my point, I think the issue with adopting a more remote/hybrid approach in the company stems from a lack of self-confidence amongst entry-level and middle-level managers in their ability to use "modern" tools to both interact more efficiently with their teams and to acquire the data they need.

Any manager who still struggles to share me his or her screen during a virtual session and can't refrain from complaining orally that "these tools suck" in 2022 has become a red flag to me.