Ledelsesmæssige udfordringer i hybridarbejde: Et Novo Nordisk casestudie med fokus på motivation

Abstract

This thesis derives from an interest in how hybrid work challenge leaders. This interest of mine emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, where companies around the world were forced into hybrid work with little prior experience or knowledge about the effects. As for now hybrid work seems to be the new normal and it is here to stay. Therefore, this thesis aims to identify, analyse, and understand leadership challenges within hybrid work by answering the research question: Which challenges do transformational leaders experience in relation to create autonomous motivation among their employees, when working in a hybrid work model? The research question was operationalized by examining which challenges transformational leaders experience in a hybrid context when aiming to fulfil their employees’ basic psychological need for competence through practicing the transformational behaviour, Individualized Consideration. Therefore, the thesis theoretically draws from three main fields of research including Self-Determination Theory, Transformational Leadership, and theories within Hybrid Work. The philosophy of science used in the thesis is the phenomenological approach. The research method is a case study, wherein the empirical evidence consists of qualitative data collection samples from six semi-structured interviews with team leaders from the pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk. The empirical analysis examines leadership challenges within 1) communication, 2) management-by- walking-around, 3) feedback, 4) coaching, 5) optimal challenge of work tasks and 6) the leader-employee relation. Following the analysis, I have discussed its findings and derived three main challenges going across all the analysed themes. I also discuss the paradoxes of hybrid work, the delimitations of the research and how the research of hybrid work is still limited. The empirical findings show that the leaders experience challenges within all the Individualized Consideration behaviors, which theoretically would serve as a challenge in fulfilling the basic psychological need for competence and thereby creating autonomous motivation. I argue in the discussion, that all identified challenges lead back to three main challenges of hybrid work: 1) limited access to practice management by waking around, 2) fewer collisions between leader and employee and 3) a perceived communication barrier. All three challenges result in decreased face-to-face communication. In the last part of the thesis, I present future recommendations for research. I also present four suggestions for leaders on how to cope with the identified challenges. These suggestions include 1) trying to simulate collisions on a distance, 2) reducing the perceived communication barrier, 3) using the time in physical proximity and on a physical distance differently and 4) focus on building and maintaining relations.