Managers learning in times of change: making the relational visible Open Access

Recent global events led to a sustained increase in office-based employees working from home, despite organisational efforts to return staff to the office (Pepper and Wicks, 2024; Visontay, 2024). The ongoing result of this has been that the concept of a single workplace has been replaced with multiple “sites” of work, each with their own practices (Francisco et al., 2022). We contend that, as a result, managers of teams have needed to shift their ways of “being” a manager in response to the changes.

Building on earlier practice-based work finding that managers learn through coming to practice differently (Lizier et al., 2023), this paper explores the relational aspects of managing through the lens of the Theory of Practice Architectures to examine how changed arrangements have prefigured new and altered ways of relating for managers and their teams. We ask what the implications of these changes are for manager learning. The project was undertaken in late 2020 and early 2021, aiming to answer research questions about how managers’ practices around work and learning were shifting during this time? Later, an opportunity arose for follow-up discussions in late 2023 and early 2024 with a small sub-set of original participants. These discussions were used to consider the stickiness of multiple sites of work and variations in practice.

The research question underlying this paper is: how have shifts in sites of work and practice architectures shaped management practices and manager learning?

Our research demonstrates that changes in practice architectures, particularly the shift to multiple sites of work, has made relational practices such as caring and engagement central to the manager’s role and a more visible part of that role. These shifts prompted managers to adapt how they support and connect with their teams, making previously less visible relational aspects of managing more apparent. As the workplace became multiple, managers had to renegotiate caring and engagement practices, which has important implications for how we understand manager learning and team relationships. The primary contribution of this paper is in highlighting how the move to multiple sites of work has brought these relational management practices to the forefront with implications for manager learning.

It is well established that working remotely impacts workers and managers in terms of how to communicate and to relate (see for example Richardson and McKenna, 2014). Interactions that can occur in-between spaces (i.e. conversations in the lift, in the resource room, at the coffee shop) in the workplace, are experienced differently for remote workers. In remote work such interactions require greater intentionality, planning and pre-arrangement as well as access to suitable technological mediation (Mühlenbrock et al., 2023).

Remote workers consequently often report their communication experiences as less rich (i.e. less opportunities informal getting to know-you conversations) with reduced quality of interactions and opportunities to give and receive feedback. Together these communication and interactional challenges may result in declining engagement, misunderstandings and limited collaboration (Van Steenberg et al., 2017).

Relationally, remote work has been implicated in workers experiencing disconnection and invisibility leading to an overall decline in relationships with peers and managers, and increased sense of exclusion and isolation both socially and professionally, difficulties in maintaining performance and potential negative impacts on career progression (Bjursell et al., 2021; Byrd, 2022; Carnevale and Hatak, 2020; Knight et al., 2022; Yarberry and Sims, 2021). The pandemic amplified these experiences not only in terms of volume, with most office workers who were not deemed “essential” transitioned to working remotely, but also in terms of uncertainty (i.e. how long such arrangements would last and how the organisation and workers would cope). Calls on managers’ capacity and capabilities to respond to workers’ needs in adjusting and coping with the radically changed work and social contexts (Carnevale and Hatak, 2020) in addition to the challenges of remote supervision, had not been greater.

Beyond learning how to cope digitally and ensuring a “digital competency boost” (Bjursell et al., 2021) for workers and for themselves, managers needed to learn how to shift the ways in which they engaged with and supervised their remote workforce by harnessing various digital tools to support engagement and quality relations (Boccoli et al., 2024).

Remote working through the pandemic required that managers let go of a “traditional managerial mindset which fears the loss of control and productivity” (Li et al., 2020). In drawing attention more specifically to managers enacting various leadership practices during and post-COVID-19, Makowski (2023) and Boccoli et al. (2024) maintain that this shift necessitates managers enacting behaviours often associated with transformational leadership, such as creating a sense of purpose, engendering cooperation and commitment, providing support and demonstrating care, ensuring that workers were afforded opportunities for work-life balance and avoiding the perils often associated with remote work.

It is well recognised that in remote work supervision and performance management shifts towards outcomes rather than process, as it is difficult for managers to be present in their team members’ practices of work and that managers play a key role in creating inclusion, a sense of belonging and meaningful work to support remote workers (Bjursell et al., 2021). This requires managers to engage more deeply and, intentionally, in relational practices. Such practices may include accepting and acknowledging workers’ challenges with the transition, ensuring safety, health and wellbeing, improving transparency in communication and demonstrating appreciation for the work achieved and nurturing collaborative relationships (Byrd, 2022).

Even prior to the pandemic, managers were increasingly needing to work in and with remote and virtual teams, as improvements in technology gave workers the opportunity to work away from the office. In such contexts, managers have needed to adapt their usual approach to managing in-person and instead learn to manage and relate to a team of people remotely, mediated via technology. The reordering of the boundaries of work and home in this way has significant implications for management practices, in particular, how managers relate to their teams.

With the growing global trend, which suggests that over 51% of employers provide location flexible working arrangements (Charted Institute of Personnel Development, 2022 cited in Makowski, 2023), researchers (see for example Makowski, 2023; Yarberry and Sims, 2021; Urbaniec et al., 2022) have recognised a need for research focused on the practical actions, behaviours, leadership approaches and technologies necessary for managers leading remote teams. Yet little attention has been paid to how managers come to learn in various work contexts. Specifically addressed in this paper are how remote work is changing organisational practices and relational dynamics through a theory of practice architectures lens. We contribute to understanding behaviours identified in the work of Makowski (2023) and Boccoli et al. (2024) around managers leading teams. Particularly understandings of providing support and demonstrating care, often associated with remote work.

Taking up recent shifts in management, leadership and learning studies adopting practice approaches (Price et al., 2020; Thompson et al., 2024; Miele and Gherardi, 2025) and the use of practice approaches in workplace learning (Francisco et al., 2022; Lizier et al., 2023), this paper is framed using the theory of practice architectures (TPA) (Kemmis et al., 2014). The TPA is a practice-based framework grounded in a site ontology (Schatzki, 2002), which avoids privileging either the individual or the social. Instead, it positions practices as the central lens through which social life can be understood. A site may be understood as physical, virtual, contextual and ontological time-space (Schatzki, 2010). In this view, practices are not simply expressions of individual actions; they also encompass extra-individual dimensions that shape the shared, intersubjective space in which practices unfold (Kemmis, 2022, p. 77). Building on these notions of a site as time-space, TPA therefore brings to the fore components of a site and practices.

Three interrelated forms of arrangements (or architectures) present in or brought into a site prefigure or shape (without determining) the practices of that site. These arrangements both enable and constrain practices across three interrelated dimensions: semantic space, physical space-time and social space (Kemmis et al., 2014). Practices are composed of three interrelated elements. Sayings refer to the language used in a practice. For example, the use of the term learning episode used by trainers to describe part of a formal training session. Doings refers to shared, and otherwise, actions and activities among those enacting the practice. For example, the delivery of content to participant which may include various learning activities such as lectures, quizzes, note taking. Relatings refers to the ways in which people and things relate to one another in the enactment of a practice, for example the degree to which participants interact and support each other’s learning in a training session (Mahon et al., 2017).

Cultural-discursive arrangements, connecting with a practice in semantic space and in the medium of language enable and constrain the sayings of a practice and possible discourses of practices. For example, the way in which learning is talked in an organisation. Material-economic arrangements, connecting with practice in time-space (physical and we argue also virtual) enable and constrain the material conditions of practices such as resourcing, creating possibilities for the doings of practices. For example, how training may be delivered (face to face in physical space or virtually) or even whether training opportunities are supported at all. Social-political arrangements, connecting in social space encompassing power relations prefigure the ways in which people and things within a practice relate. For example, whether managers and workers support each other’s learning (Kemmis et al., 2014; Mahon et al., 2017). Practices and arrangements are in form of dialogue with one another, each shaping and reshaping aspects of arrangements as practices are enacted and vice versa, forming and reforming the practice architectures of a site (Kemmis, 2022).

We maintain that as a site ontological theory in the practice tradition, the TPA is particularly useful here to highlight and explore practices of managing and how managers were coming to practice differently through changed practice arrangements and multiple sites of work. This approach allows for an enriched understanding of managing as webs of practices rather than as a discrete set of individual manager behaviours.

This paper draws on interviews undertaken with twelve managers in the state of New South Wales, Australia from across a range of industry sectors where each of the participants had supervisory responsibility for other workers. The overall study aimed to investigate the experiences of managers from various workplaces during the pandemic period from 2020 to 2021. The focus was on exploring how the work, and other practices of the managers were shifting and the ways in which this enabled and constrained learning at the site(s) of work. Participants were selected using a purposive sampling approach (Palys, 2008) where participants were identified from the industry networks of the researchers. Potential participants were contacted directly via email or direct messages through the LinkedIn professional networking app and asked to contact the researcher via email if they wished to volunteer for the study. Volunteers were identified and selected based on being managers within organisations that had moved to remote work during the pandemic. As an intentional strategy, participants were drawn from a range of sectors wherever possible. The final list included local government, non-government organisation, education, pharmaceuticals, food production and distribution and construction. The names of the organisations have been kept confidential for privacy reasons. The participants had all managed teams before although the extent of their experience varied. Typically, participants were mid-career with similar duration of experience in managing teams.

The interviews consisted of some semi-structured interview questions to open the interview and to establish work context, after which the Interview to the Double (ITTD) method (Gherardi, 2019; Nicolini, 2009) was used for the core part of the interview. ITTD is a method often used to explore learning and knowing within daily work practices (Gherardi et al., 1998; Nicolini, 2012; Sheridan et al., 2021). Interviews were structured around the concept that the participant was briefing the interviewer on how to replace them for the following week (i.e. become their double). Participants were asked to provide the interviewer with an overview of their week and instructions about how to “replace” them as their “double” so that no-one can notice the switch.

An opportunity arose for some additional interviews in 2023/2024 with selected participants from the original sample. These were treated as follow-up discussions that were used to examine the “stickiness” of multiple sites of work (i.e. extent that people were still working remotely) and variations in practice. These discussions were conversational in nature rather than semi-structured or ITTD interview format. Consequently, these conversations, while recorded and transcribed, were not part of the original data analysis.

Interviews were conducted virtually using an online video-conferencing platform (Zoom) where the interviews were recorded then transcribed using the automatic transcription function in the online tool before being manually reviewed by the researchers to ensure accuracy. To address matters of internal validity in this qualitative study, we asked participants to review and confirm interview transcripts and provided participants with an early summary outlining the direction of findings. We grounded our analysis on the situated accounts of managerial practice presented in the participants’ thick descriptions of the lived experiences. The inclusion of managers from across multiple sectors and roles, supports the external validity of this study, however we recognise that this is also a limitation due to the small sample size of managers from each sector.

Whole transcripts were used through two stages of data analysis that adopted an iterative approach alternating between the researchers each conducting an individual analysis using a common protocol then working as a group to compare analyses. The first stage of the process was a thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2021) to identify key themes related to the research questions through an iterative cross-referencing of data, analysis and literature. The second stage of data analysis was framed by the theory of practice architectures using a modified Table of Invention (Kemmis et al., 2014) to more closely explore practices and arrangements for each site of work. Later discussions taking place in 2023/2024 took place both in-person or via Zoom depending on the preferences of the participant. These discussions were also recorded and transcribed but were reviewed in conjunction with the thematic and Table of Invention analysis rather than analysed independently.

This study found that shifts in sites of work and practice architectures prefigured by the shift to multiple sites of work, brought the relational practices of caring and engaging into sharper focus for managers as a key aspect of their role. These shifts prompted managers to come to their relatings differently. In this section, we review the findings to show they ways in which managers came to their practice differently.

All participants reported that in ordinary times, the social-political arrangements of formal meetings was a way of working together in teams, and this continued as part of day-to-day practice, through reformed material-economic arrangements of teleconference software. Yet in the remote work period, people noticed the absence of incidental and informal ways in which workers and managers related to each other outside of formal team meetings. What came apparent was that in achieving work practices, doings (having the online meeting) and sayings (talking through the agenda) were necessary but not sufficient in achieving outcomes. The absence of incidental, informal and emergent ways of relating to each were being noticed and began to surface within the formal lines of communication. In reflecting back on how meetings were conducted prior to remote work, Chloe a manager at a food manufacturing organisation, highlighted how the previously incidental ways of relating were being reconstituted as an extra agenda item:

For other managers, even though the frequency of formal meetings and communications had increased, the absence of the relational aspects of working with each other was strongly felt. Managers talked about how connecting with each other beyond work was something that they were afraid of losing, as this was understood as important. For example, Ken feared the loss of the personal and informal engagement in his team. He took steps to try and maintain the personal connections within the material-economic possibilities as part of the new sites of work:

Like Ken, other managers began reshaping the social-political arrangements through the establishment of new rules about what discourses were appropriated at various times. Explicit rules were established for meetings that were “work-based” where work was talked about and those which were “personal” where all but work could be discussed. Similarly, Jessica and her team adopted Google Hangouts as a proxy for incidental ways of relating and sustaining engagement between team members:

In addition to rules about what could be talked about in which interaction, specific rules around the material-economic arrangements of scheduling were also being established. Participants reported intentionally scheduling opportunities for less formal talk to sustain the social-political aspects of work. Some managers talked about how they became more intentional about the communication channels they selected for these communications. Here managers were figuring out which materialities were “fit for purpose” as a way in which managers could attempt to replicate or simulate the informal “water cooler” or “corridor chats” to avoid sending yet another email. This was highlighted by Xavier in describing the different communication tools that people were using:

These different ways of relating, mediated through different material-economic arrangements, whereby “business” meetings were conducted using specified form of communication channels, for example Webex or the telephone, while “personal” catchups, would be mediated by alternative forms of communication channels for example Google Hangouts began to emerge. In addition to communication channels, specific rules around the material-economic arrangements of scheduling were also being established. At the time, as Xavier pointed out, the socio-political arrangements around IT were still developing as there was not yet any mutually agreed “centrally I.T. driven system everyone should use.”

In contrast, other organisations either already were using certain systems or had made decisions at the beginning of the remote work period and were developing practices of how and for what purpose, to use certain systems for different kinds of (informal) communications, while maintaining already existing formal communication practices such as emails and meetings. Noel highlighted how such practice evolved in his organisation:

There also appeared to be a return to, as Noel described it, “old school” material-economic arrangements to sustain the relational elements of managing by senior leadership:

Another aspect was the ways in which the new material-economic arrangements were adopted and how these enabled or constrained the relational aspects of managing. When asked about how engagement was maintained in online meetings, and how the organisation came to policy decisions about cameras “on” during meetings, Chloe responded:

As time went on, the use of cameras worked differently for different meetings and with different colleagues. At times “camera on” was understood and used as an important mechanism for connection and engagement:

At other times having the option of “camera off” for certain larger meetings was a way in which managers “caught up” by multi-tasking:

Over time, perhaps because of work intensification and/or an over emphasis in relational practices to maintain engagement, some managers noted a persistence of cameras off. This was perceived as a dip in engagement, and the assumption was that the camera off was an indication that one was being “caught out” multi-tasking. This was perceived as having an impact on relational aspects of these formal communications:

Relating through an intentionality of communication appeared to be something that both managers and team members have found to be a positive outcome from the pandemic.

For other participants, the focus on intentional communication was understood as something that enabled learning how to communicate more effectively through various mediums and how such mediums had an equalising effect. As Sam noted:

Managers told of how they were becoming more aware of the “caring” aspects of how they related to their team members. The discourses of how to relate to each other in caring ways, and what was needed by different individuals based on their circumstances emerged. This is seen in Jessica’s comment:

For managers like Lauren, being aware of the circumstances of some of her team members was important not only to sustain engagement but also to ensure that they “were OK.” In discussing a team member, Rosanne, who continued to work remotely even when the organisation had returned to blended work, shared:

Explaining that although Rosanne was not living alone, she lacked social emotional support, Lauren added:

What was also foregrounded by managers was the caring element of managing, one which became more intentional, and which required them knowing and understanding their team members’ personal circumstances. It became more important to understand what was happening for people at home, how they were coping and who they had supporting them (or not). For some managers this resulted in more actively checking in on people, maintaining and extending existing relational practices, to ensure a good understanding of who needed support and the kind of support that was needed.

As we have discussed so far, the public health orders requiring workers to work from home created a significant and sudden shift in the arrangements at the site. These were initially expected to be temporary before workers returned to what some interviewees termed the “new normal.” However, as time went on, organisations realised that the shift in arrangements was proving to be resilient and so began to codify the new, more flexible work arrangements and multiple sites of work through new policies, again altering the cultural-discursive arrangements at sites by more effectively enabling flexible work across multiple sites. For example, Bob’s organisation was, at the time of the interview, reviewing their flexible working policies to better accommodate the changes in work sites. It’s also important to note that they were starting to ask key questions around how work functioned and the role of the relational in that work as the quote below highlights:

From the perspective of the organisation, the discussion centred around the importance of the relational and the value that they placed on collaborating in teams to innovate and solve problems. As the quote from Bob above highlights, organisations were asking critical questions about why workers would want to attend the office and under what conditions. The quote from Bob also shows how this was couched in terms of the relational with organisations suggesting that the office as a workplace was an important site of relating that might not necessarily be achieved through remote work. This perspective was in tension with workers who valued their newfound flexibility and would only return to the office on their own terms. As Noel noted:

In Noel’s organisation, the human resources department was working with managers to learn from the remote working experience to evaluate what worked well and what did not as practices of working from multiple sites continued and became better established. The organisation did not dictate that employees need to return to the office for a defined number of days but instead provided the flexibility for managers to communicate with and co-create the necessary conditions with their staff. As Noel noted:

The relating of managers was therefore critical in negotiating the altered practices and arrangements as they were encouraged to negotiate the new practice landscape with their workers and find new and more personalised, ways of working.

At the same time, workers were also reflecting on their practices of working and how they perceived flexibility. In such a context, the question for managers became about how workers would relate to one another, and to the organisation, under these changed arrangements and multiple sites of work rather than waiting for “normality” to be restored and everyone to return to a central site of work in the office. For the managers in our study, there appeared at times to be an underlying assumption that relating to one another and engaging in teams was always positive and that this was a key reason to get workers to work primarily, or mostly, in the shared office space rather than from multiple remote sites.

As time went on and sites of work remained multiple, organisations came to view the more flexible arrangements as an opportunity to intentionally alter the arrangements. Given the shift in work (and other) practices to taking place across multiple sites of work (Lizier et al., 2023), some organisations noticed that there were opportunities to alter the material-economic arrangements relating to budgets thereby saving money for the organisation. Noel offered some insights into this thinking when he talked about his organisation and how they were approaching the need for office space and parking places longer term:

Conversations with managers then also changed where, once again, managers were at the forefront of such conversations with their teams to help facilitate the change process. Another, very contentious area that Noel noted was a plan to reduce access to parking places. This was a benefit enjoyed at his organisation, but which was being questioned in terms of the financial advantages of removing this benefit for the staff:

Noel went on to say that this change to the material-economic arrangements, which came about because of the altered arrangements and practices in the initial move to remote working, further entrenched the transformed practices of working. Noel noted that his team in human resources believed that this one, seemingly minor change, in removing access to parking spots under the building would have a significant effect on how workers took up flexibility. In turn, this further entrenched flexibility as a key arrangement at the site and a key influence on how workers and managers related to the site and to one another.

There is a tension here between the managers who want workers to return to a central site of work as part of the social-political and cultural-discursive arrangements at the site, while the organisation (in the form of decisions made by senior leadership) wants to take the opportunity of less workers on site to reduce the cost of facilities thereby further altering the material-economic arrangements in ways that enable working remotely. The arrangements are then in tension with a resulting impact on practices. The material-economic arrangement of having a convenient place to park when one commutes to work and a desk of one’s own had been, pre-COVID, helping to prefigure practices of working from the central work site – the office. Removing or transforming such material-economic arrangements then has the potential to significantly reinforce flexibility, thereby creating/reinforcing intentional communication in the form of online meetings and chats (as noted earlier).

Through the experience of the pandemic, the managers interviewed identified that the relational aspects of working were important, emphasising the need to engage and care for their teams. This was mainly shaped through relational practices and arrangements suddenly becoming visible in ways that they were not previously. To sustain informal interactions as well as more formal meetings, managers needed to vary or transform their own practices of working as well as their expectations about how their teams also managed their own practices of work and learning. The managers may then be said to have come to practice differently (Kemmis, 2021) through the variation and transformation of practices and practice arrangements over time within reformed sites of work. This happened across multiple sites of work and different organisational contexts. Despite working across different sites and contexts of work, managers had a shared experience of the practice architectures at those sites shifting and prefiguring new practices. A common experience for the managers was how those practices shifted with regards to caring for and engagement with their teams.

Interviews with managers showed how their practices were reproduced with variation over time (Kemmis, 2022), with managers coming to practice differently – or learning – through participation in those altered practices, prefigured by changed practice architectures. The managers “learned” about themselves as workers (e.g. feeling overwhelmed, back-to-back meetings, how and why they like to receive feedback) and about themselves as managers (e.g. importance of checking-in, understanding the personal circumstances of their team members) through coming to their work, and other, practices differently as arrangements shifted with the changing requirements of the pandemic and organisational responses to these.

Much of this coming to managing practices differently was based on shifts in the practice architectures, particularly shifts in material-economic arrangements, as sites of work altered through the pandemic. Social-political arrangements were also altered along with the material-economic arrangements at the site. For example, the shift to remote work meant that much communication moved online (changed material-economic arrangements), shifting social-political arrangements and the relatings of practices that were now strongly mediated by technology and the practice architectures of the specific site of work for each team member. These changed social-political arrangements prefigured new practices of relating.

In addition to learning how to go on within their own work and management practices, the shifting practice architectures changed how the managers saw themselves. Managers were prompted to confront their own underlying beliefs about what it meant to be a “good” manager and managing in their role in new and renegotiated caring and engagement practices. The relational aspects of managing were shifting, raising significant questions for developing managing practices and managers who participate in those practices. The focus is no longer on discrete skills such as feedback and delegation but rather relational practices of caring and engagement. Taking a practice approach has been instrumental in uncovering these aspects of managing and highlighting their importance in the reformed sites of work post-pandemic.

Many of the changed practice architectures wrought by the pandemic are ongoing and have permanently altered the practice landscape for managers in organisations. Such changes call into question traditional modes of management development that have tended to focus on specific skills and behaviours that may no longer be serving managers (or organisations) well. Supportive relationships between managers and workers and among co-workers, have been identified as having a key impact on worker resilience, a necessity during the pandemic, but also key in how managers and workers will face the next global or organisational challenge. Attention to developing manager’s competencies and attunement towards how they may facilitate the development of such relationships (Thompson et al., 2024) and on ways they may support workers’ demands of adjusting to changing work environments (e.g. remote and/or hybrid) is a necessity (Li et al., 2020).

For professionals across many fields, professional development has become a career-long endeavour. Despite a wealth of research describing how workers learn primarily through participation in work (see for example Boud and Hager, 2012; Francisco et al., 2022; Hager, 2011) there is often still a focus within organisations on learning as a structured set of activities that can be tracked and measured (Lizier and Reich, 2021). Interviews with the managers in this study have shown how enacting practices and “coming to practice differently,” has been an important way in which managers have learned how to go on during this tumultuous time. This learning continues to be applied and refined beyond the initial crisis and continues to inform their practice as managers. The discourse around learning at and for work therefore needs to be redirected away from an emphasis on structured professional development towards seeing professionals as engaged, agentic individuals and reframed with learning recognised “as continuing, active, social, and related to practice” (Webster-Wright, 2009).

The findings of this study support a view that managers leading teams working across multiple sites of work require a greater awareness of relational practices and the role of practice arrangements in enabling and constraining their interactions with their teams. We have seen that managers, workers and organisations have the capacity to facilitate the widespread development of technological literacy (e.g. virtual meeting technologies, remote access tools, etc.). This was achieved through various modes, some of which included courses delivered online through e-learning platforms, but also much which required workers to access solutions through online forums, trial and error (Högberg and Willermark, 2023) and simply figuring things out on their own (Li et al., 2020) or with the support of co-workers (Knight et al., 2022). This process involved re-learning and un-learning ways to interact with teams and colleagues (Högberg and Willermark, 2023). Supportive relationships were therefore found to be necessary, not only between managers and workers, but also between co-workers in the organisational community. Attention towards skilling up managers in how they may facilitate the development of such relationships with and between workers will be key not only in supporting workers’ demands of adjusting to shifting sites of work but also in coping with future global challenges (Li et al., 2020). Understanding manager learning as coming to practice differently increases the visibility of relational practices for managers and offers the opportunity to reconsider management as a web of managing practices shaped by the practice architectures found at a site (rather than place) of work. Exploring manager learning through these times of change through the lens of the TPA and as coming to practice differently has provided new insights into how managers learned how to go on during a crisis and how they are approaching their ongoing learning as we move into the post-pandemic workplace with multiple sites of work (Lizier et al., 2023).

Exploring shifting practice architectures in the multiple sites of work for managers and their teams has highlighted the critical importance of relational practices as key aspects of the managerial role post-pandemic. Caring for, and engaging with, one’s teams has been foregrounded as a highly visible and important part of a manager’s role, one that is now often conducted across multiple sites of work for managers and their individual team members. Shifts in the practice architectures as managers and their teams worked across multiple sites of work prefigured new and re-formed practices for managers that saw them come to practice differently as they navigated shifting arrangements and practices. Caring and engagement work that was previously invisible, or certainly far less visible, has been made visible as managers came to practice differently as managers and as workers when the material-economic arrangements shifted to remote work, prefiguring changes to doings in practices (e.g. technology mediated communications) that also altered social-political arrangements at the sites and the relatings of practices.

In taking a TPA approach to understanding work and learning across multiple sites, this paper has highlighted the insights available through a broader conceptualisation of learning as one of learning as coming to practice differently (Kemmis, 2021; Kemmis, 2022). This has significant implications for not only what managers learn but how we understand that learning to be taking place. In organisations where manager learning has been shaped by approaches to learning that adopt metaphors of learning as acquisition and transfer (Hager, 2011; Lizier and Reich, 2021) this study emphasises learning as being a key part of enacting practices and of the critical importance of the relational aspects of the role, aspects that can only be learned through participation in practices.