Leaders feeling more pressure as employees return to offices

As the U.S. undergoes a monumental shift in working habits, managers and senior leaders are feeling more pressure at work — not only to produce results, but also to be more visible to company leadership. Those are the findings of new research from Provo-based experience management platform Qualtrics.{mprestriction ids="1,3"}

Qualtrics’ research found that 43 percent of managers and 41 percent of senior leaders feel more pressure to produce results than they did a year ago. In addition to that pressure, in the new world of remote and hybrid work, 43 percent of managers also say they feel more pressure to be visible to leadership, regardless of their achievements.

Uncertainty about when and how often workers will have to be in the office continues to be a persistent source of tension between executives and employees. During the height of the pandemic, reports of burnout and mental health problems increased dramatically, and 58 percent of American workers attributed their mental health challenges to their jobs. And now, as organizations implement new return-to-office policies, they are looking to managers to enforce sometimes unpopular policies and manage teams from afar.

“Companies simply cannot take their managers for granted. They carry an increasingly heavy load and are the connective tissue that holds an organization together, especially during times of uncertainty and change,” said Dr. Benjamin Granger, Qualtrics’ chief workplace psychologist. “As we learned during the pandemic, it is essential that we care for our caregivers — and that applies in the workplace as well. Every company needs to be tuned in to how their people leaders are really doing and identify ways to directly support them.”

The added stress may be pushing these groups to look for new jobs, the study said. Managers and senior leaders are more likely to look for a new job in the next six months than individual contributors and C-suite leaders. Qualtrics research showed that 57 percent of job seekers believe a new role will help them feel less burned-out. The Qualtrics study was fielded in August and respondents were selected from a randomized panel and considered eligible if they live in the United States, are at least 18 years of age and work full-time. The total number of respondents was more than 1,000.{/mprestriction}