Equatorial, part of the Bittnet Group, and Reveal Marketing Research study: The hybrid work model challenges the interpersonal skills of IT team leaders
In the context in which teleworking system has acquired the greatest magnitude in the technology & IT sector, Equatorial, a company that supports the development of soft skills through dedicated and adapted leadership programs to the specific needs in the IT&C field of activity, has started a representative study among team leaders in Romania, in partnership with Reveal Marketing Research, on topics related to attitudes about the workplace.
The research which has been conducted between March and April 2022 among 317 respondents highlights the following insights:
- The new ways of organising work have led 67% of IT team leaders to develop new communication and relationship skills with the team members in order to maintain an optimal level of productivity.
- Currently, 8 out of 10 team leaders believe that human challenges, the ones related to interaction between people, are more difficult to manage than the technical ones.
The unforeseen challenges that were brought by teleworking forced team leaders to adopt a new leadership style
The new context shaped by the work-from-home model represented a challenge for 72% of the team leaders, 67% of them mentioning that they had to develop new skills in order to maintain an optimal level of involvement and productivity within their teams.
Some of the biggest challenges mentioned by team leaders regarding their daily activity include adoption of teleworking skills (68%) and dealing with the lack of daily interaction with the team members (55%).
As the transition to teleworking involved a quick change in the way they work, team leaders needed more time and put special effort to make right and effective decisions. Thus, a third of them consider finding solutions to the team’s problems a difficult aspect of their current work.
The hybrid work model start to become a standard for more and more companies. In this context, team leaders are the main players who should help both companies and employees to reach a common goal in terms of finding the optimal working model. 3 out of 10 respondents consider that maintaining employee motivation and morale is a difficult aspect at the workplace, so team leaders are placed in the challenging position to find optimal return-to-workplace solutions, without recording lower productivity.
For team leaders, the new paradigm of hybrid work highlighted the importance of developing soft skills in order to overcome the constant workplace challenges
For 76% of team leaders, human challenges, the ones related to interaction between people, seem more difficult to manage than the technical ones.
In this context, 97% of team leaders consider that the ability to empathise and communicate effectively with team members plays a fundamental role in their daily work, especially since 56% of them have identified an increase in communication difficulties within their teams.
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About Reveal Marketing Research
Reveal Marketing Research is a full-service market research company, specialized in market research, sociological studies, customer insight, business strategy, market development. With expertise in over 20 industries, Reveal Marketing Research believes that market research is the basis for the right decisions and brand positioning. Qualitative and quantitative solutions have been helping companies in Romania and Europe for 14 years.
About Equatorial
Equatorial, the only training company within a tech group – Bittnet, supports IT&C team leaders in developing soft skills through dedicated and adapted leadership programs to their specific needs. With a team of experienced trainers in implementing learning programmes related to leadership in technology topic, Equatorial stands out as the first training company in Romania which used technology and learning platforms within the framework of development programmes. Moreover, Equatorial continued to innovate, synthesizing, for the first time, the Learner Persona profile of Tech Team Leads.
The company’s goal is to build successful personalities and careers, but also teams prepared for the future of work.
Methodology: The Reveal Marketing Research study was conducted online between 25.03 – 05.04.2022 on a representative sample for the universe of team leaders from IT departments, aged 25+, from urban areas, internet users. The sample size was 317 respondents, and the maximum sampling error is +/-5.6% at a 95% confidence level.