Some organisations have responded by issuing diktats and empowering managers to employ ‘corrective action’ when employees do not put in enough time in the office. Others have merely offered guidance, and trusted teams to make their own decisions.

We're basically all working remotely but limiting the timezones in which we hire people to join our team to ensure some level of synchronous work without affecting people's lives that much. We also encourage people not to schedule calls on Mondays and have only one mandatory call on Fridays (our all hands). I believe that remote work has not affected notions of authority as such, but rather the way in which managers work with their teams and achieve high-impact results. To achieve this, it is necessary to attain high levels of influence within the organisation, and this requires spaces and moments of serendipity where less structured conversations can take place to discuss motivations, the rationale behind certain decisions, and the managers' thought processes. This is harder to get in hybrid working environments.

During COVID, I believe my role was critical to help calm nerves, communicate clearly and build rapport with several leaders. Also, we launched our first company newsletter during the first wave, and that helped distract attention from the bad news happening around the world. It was the break our people needed, and it worked!