Employee empowerment | Increased stress and anxiety due to WFH micromanaging - you need to trust your staff

Employees feel disempowered whilst working from home, largely due to mistrust from bosses and micromanagement techniques, according to new research from the King’s Business School and Norwich Business School.

Micro-management is one of the oldest poor management techniques there is. Usually, an organisation that has a culture of micro-management isn’t trying to be a tyrant to their staff for no reason. Rather it comes from an inability to trust employees, fear of failing, pressure from senior leaders, or all of the above.

Either way, micro-management breeds toxicity in the workplace, and creates an environment where staff feel like they have no agency or power over their own work – this is a recipe for disaster considering autonomy is a main element of workplace happiness.

With all the positive things remote and hybrid work has bought into the workplace, it has also increased the likelihood for some of the negative managerial characteristics that can lead to micro-management.