YS Top Representative Study Lin B. Karsten

YS Top Representative Study

From August 2021 to May 2022, I got the privilege to participate in a study program that was a pilot project as an initiative of YS through my position as deputy chair of VEFF.

LIN BEATE KARSTEN, DEPUTY CHAIR VEFF

The program took place over one year with 4 sessions, 2 mandatory assignments and a final exam in May. The 4 sub-federations of YS, Parat, Delta, Negotia and Finansforbundet got 5 seats each, there were 20 students who participated.

THE TOPICS IN THE DIFFERENT SESSIONS WERE:

− First session: Change, selfmanagement, and leadership − Second session: Megatrends and the future of the trade union movement − Third session: Change and disruption − Fourth session: Communication and influence What was distinctive about this program was that all the students had to formulate their own research question at the start of the program, which we wanted to go into more depth about. My choice of research question fell on “Leadership in a hybrid working day”. During the seminars, I received a lot of professional input that could be used to write an academic thesis related to the research question.

“Study practice was the name of the program and the purpose was to use one’s own working day and link this to theory.”

“The pandemic is/was probably not a game changer, more of the changes in our working life was there before we were forced to work from home. But what is certain is that this would have been useful anyway and that managing employees has changed and that self-management, relationship management, competence mobilization and self-motivation will have a great impact in the future.”

During the autumn after start-up on the study program, I discovered that I wanted to elaborate on my research question and my topic I had chosen to write about, so this ended with the following formulation of the research question: − What consequences and how or whether the pandemic has affected how to manage employees and what is required of self-management in a hybrid/flexible working arrangement. − Furthermore, I have also discussed whether and how the psychosocial working environment is affected by hybrid work arrangements. There were many interesting, related issues and hypotheses that emerged during the study that were closely related to my main research question; − How to manage employees, has that changed? − How to lead oneself (self-management), what is required of each employee? − How to create flexibility for the individual without compromising productivity? − Will something happen to the psychosocial working environment?

My conclusion in my thesis was that in a hybrid work situation (defined

A formalization of long experience

Formalizing the knowledge and experience that employee representatives possess is very valuable for both us and for you in the work you will continue to do, said Rector of Kristiania University College, Trine J. Meza, in her opening speech.

Graduates from the associations Parat, Negotia, Delta and Finansforbundet presented exciting angles and findings for reflection in what they eventually hope will be a collection of articles with an overview of the employee representative’s role in Norwegian work-places today.

On their homepage, Kristiania University College describes that the program developed in cooperation with the four federations will:

• Create professional development that puts you in the best possible position to exercise existing or upcoming positions in your federation and own business. • Strengthen your ability to become a good leader and role model as an active contributor in the federation. • Establish and develop networks with other top elected officials.

as performing your work in different places, partly in the office in a community with others and partly in a home office) a different type of management is required than if everyone is together.

At the same time, I’ve seen through practice and theory that it hasn’t necessarily changed because of a pandemic. For a lot of what I have experienced, there was already performed much research, and for years there has been focus on this topic within management theories. New generations have and still

“Leadership is a woolly concept, but most definitions of leadership are about influencing to create good interaction between people so that together you achieve common goals.” Tom Karp, professor of leadership

have (even before the pandemic) different expectations of leadership than the older generations.

Relationship management will be something I am left with that I believe will become more and more important in a working life where employees increasingly need and want autonomy, trust, support, and motivation.

I’m pretty sure this will apply both when you work alone in the home office and when contact with managers and colleagues is digital, or if you meet at the office every day. When it comes to the psychosocial working environment, in my opinion this is something that must be focused on continuously and that an important element here is perspective exploration and the ability and willingness of the individual to see things from multiple perspectives, which I personally believe will be of great importance in creating a good working environment. My contention is that this is partly influenced by how one is managed, but that in the end it is the individual employee’s ability to understand each other better that will be decisive for whether one manages are enabled to create a good psychosocial work environment. Whether such a way of organizing work affects the psychosocial working environment, my conclusion is that it is partly affected, but that the greatest influencing factor is the ability of individual employees to familiarize themselves with the needs of others and how the manager motivates and trusts his/her employees. How and how extensive this impact is/becomes is somewhat unclear and difficult to conclude, as it depends a lot on how often (and how) you interact both physically and digitally around task solving and what works best for which tasks.