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The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated hybrid work adoption, essentially altering line managers' roles as they navigate supervising geographically dispersed teams. Despite widespread implementation, limited qualitative research examines how managers adapt their leadership practices within this evolving work model. This study explored the perceived challenges, opportunities, and leadership adaptations amongst line managers in hybrid settings, aiming to reveal factors that enhance leadership capability, team performance, and strategic HR practices. Inadequate understanding of managerial perceptions hinders evidence-based leadership development tailored for hybrid contexts. Line managers experience increased stress managing distributed teams whilst balancing flexibility with accountability, yet empirical research focusing on their experiences remains scarce. Adopting an interpretivist paradigm, this generic qualitative study conducted semi-structured interviews with 12 line managers from diverse sectors possessing at least two years of managerial experience supervising hybrid teams. Manual thematic analysis following Braun and Clarke's (2006) framework identified recurring patterns. Four themes emerged: challenges characterised by a trust-visibility paradox requiring structured communication and output-based monitoring; leadership opportunities demanding trust-based, emotionally intelligent, digitally fluent approaches; transformed practices shifting from presence-based to performance-based supervision; and critical organisational support needs including emotional intelligence training and clear hybrid policies.  Organisations must implement targeted interventions including hybrid-specific leadership development programmes, formalised communication protocols, output-based performance systems, and systematic wellbeing support.

Currently, South African government departments is inundated with common dire predicaments prominently manifested in the form of lack of punctuality, frequent leave requests, lack of engagement and poor management of employee wellbeing, resulting in high absenteeism rates. Flexible working schedules ameliorate the level of contentment and performance, which has been discovered to benefit both the employer and employee. There are limited previous studies done in the South African Public Sector on the subject of adopting flexibility conditions in the workplace. The empirical evidence on the subject is still sparse for the transitional economy like South Africa. Hence, this study sought to investigate the flexible work arrangements in the public organisation. The study adopted an exploratory design and a qualitative approach. A qualitative research approach was chosen for the study because it provided an opportunity to explore the research objectives in greater detail. The sample size and strategy used comprised organising focus group interviews as well as individual interviews, using a sample of 10 participants from different levels of the organisation. The findings of the study revealed that offering flexibility could help and support the emotional health of the employees. The study also found that a call for a flexible work strategy is of interest to most employees as it provides work-life balance. The organisation should consider implementing and making provision for flexible working arrangements which in turn improve job fulfilment, increase work and life, motivate employees, reduce absenteeism and increasing the quality of service delivery at all organisational levels.

Women shoulder the dual responsibilities of managing their households and professional commitments. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a new working model that has blurred these roles. Even before the pandemic, women encountered numerous barriers in the workplace, and the pandemic may have exacerbated these challenges. Therefore, it is essential to explore this topic further. This study aims to investigate women's experiences in the workplace during the COVID-19 pandemic, utilising a qualitative approach within an exploratory and interpretivist paradigm. The research adopts a case study methodology focusing on one of South Africa's leading banks, with women from different levels of seniority selected for sampling. From September 2021 to February 2022, interviews were conducted with fifteen women from the case study bank using Microsoft Teams. Thematic analysis was employed to analyse the collected data, resulting in four themes and thirteen sub-themes. The first theme explores changes in the working model, while the second theme delves into organisational support. The third theme focuses on continued career growth, and the final theme addresses work-life conflict. The findings indicate that women in the case organisation perceive the remote working model as advantageous, increasing productivity and facilitating the integration of their professional and personal roles. However, a drawback of this new arrangement is the emergence of work-life conflict as work responsibilities intrude upon their personal lives. Although the case organisation provided some support, there is room for improvement. This study offers valuable insights for the financial services sector regarding women's experiences and areas that require enhancement within the industry. By shedding light on women's workplace experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic, this research contributes to the existing knowledge and presents a conceptual model for organisations to support female employees working remotely.