This means that organisations will have to support their managers. They will need to invest in the development of leadership skills that are not centered around Covid fire-fighting, but are based on the new New Normal, i.e. the future.

Now is also the time to look at the personality traits an individual requires to be successful in managing a blended team. Do they need to be more driving or relaxed in their approach to performance management, or perhaps more sociable on those video calls? Most people can adjust their behaviour to a certain extent without it being a cause for concern, but if that stretch goes too far or is sustained for too long, you’ll have a case of burnout on your hands. To avoid that with your new hires, make sure you recruit with the right traits in mind. For those in post, help them to develop coping strategies in the areas that they find most challenging using a tailored approach that takes into account how they prefer to learn and be considered. Furthermore, equip your manager with the information they need about their teams, to enable them to understand how those individuals prefer to be managed.

Managers must hone the emotionally intelligent communication, creativity, resilience and motivation skills that best suit remote teams. This will be increasingly called into focus as remote hiring increases. The technology once reserved for large organisations and those in the tech sector, is now available for every size and type of business. Hiring managers will be less dependent on a local geographic gene pool for talent, potentially able to recruit globally for relatively junior roles. This in itself creates a challenge however as interviewers will need to be even better prepped for online interviewing. User-friendly assessments which include the ability to define a role and then compare a candidate to it will prove particularly valuable.

On-going remote working will test managers’ ability to lead their remote teams. The nuisances of verbal, non-verbal and written communication are heightened without the face-to-face interaction that can soften or add empathy to a comment. Managers will need to support their teams with optimism and be ready to adapt in response to business or even personal needs. They must encourage greater collaboration and creativity in circumstances where it is more difficult, in order to grow team cohesion, belonging and in keeping with the organisation’s values. Pre-Covid, this might have been post-work drinks or a team lunch. Without those downtime crutches, we have to grow our teams while working together – that’s much harder.