Social games have become a digital phenomenon over the last few years, affecting a lot of peoples everyday life. This paper focuses on how social games can affect workplace relationships. Through qualitative interviews I investigate how people who play with their colleagues experience the social games and their influence on the social interaction in the workplace. 10 interviews were carried out with people from four different organizations. The findings from these interviews were then put in relation to previous research and existing theories concerning workplace relationships and social games. The findings suggests that social games help to maintain and enhance existing relationships between colleagues. The research also show that although only a few of the interviewed believe that their relationships has been affected noticeably, the games become a common interest between the colleagues, resulting in increased conversation and more non-workrelated topics.

I början av år 2020 drabbades vårt samhälle av Covid-19 pandemin, vilket medförde riktlinjer som innebar att flertal organisationer aktualiserade ett arbete på distans. Det har i mångt och mycket diskuterats kring hur distansarbetet har påverkat organisationerna såväl som de individer som organisationen innefattas av. Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie är undersöka och skapa sig en förståelse för hur ett ledarskap på distans har påverkat relationerna mellanchef och medarbetare. Relationen mellan ledare och medarbetare utgörs i denna studien av aspekter som stöd, kommunikation och ledarskapet på distans ur såväl medarbetarnas som ledarnas perspektiv. Vidare undersöks även om organisationsstrukturen har någon påverkan i hur relationerna på distans har sett ut. Genom att inkludera ledare likväl som medarbetare i undersökningen skapas en bredare förståelse kring ämnet och en tydligare inblick växer fram kring komplexiteten i ledarens förmåga att leda och utveckla starka relationer på distans. Undersökningen riktar sig i första hand till nuvarande och framtida ledare, i vilket ledarna kan skapa en uppfattning och därmed tillsätta sig kunskap för att enklare kunna planera och utföra sitt ledarskap på distans i framtiden. Det empiriska insamlade materialet innefattas av totalt 14 intervjuer, varav två av respondenterna är ledare och resterande är medarbetare. Undersökningen har genomförts på två större organisationer i Sverige, den ena statligt ägd och den andra privatägd. Vidare innefattas det empiriska materialet även av interna dokument i form av riktlinjer kopplat till distansarbetet. Resultatet från datainsamlingen visar i första hand på att distansen i sig inte är den avgörandefaktorn för hur relationerna mellan medarbetare och chef påverkats av arbete på distans, utan att det till stor del beror på vilken typ av ledarskap som chefen utövar. Vidare kan vikonstatera att kommunikationen är den faktor som påverkar relationerna i högst grad, där digitaliseringen förhindrar att kroppspråk framkommer lika väl som det gör fysiskt. På grund av det ledarskap som de intervjuade cheferna präglas av, har inte organisationsstrukturen haft någon direkt betydelse kring huruvida relationerna mellan chef och medarbetare påverkats av ett arbete på distans. Avslutningsvis kan vi konstatera att en hybridlösning, där de anställda har möjlighet att arbeta både hemifrån och på kontoret, ses som det bästa alternativet från såväl medarbetarnas som chefernas synvinkel. / At the beginning of 2020, our society was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, which led to guidelines that meant several organizations implemented work at a distance. There has been a lot of discussion about how distance work has affected the organizations as well as the individuals that work in the organizations. The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine and create an understanding on how remote leadership has affected the relationships between manager and employee. In this study, the relationship between leader and employee consists of aspects such as support, communication and leadership at a distance from the perspective of both employees and leaders. Furthermore the study also aims to investigate whether the organizational structure, based on hierarchy, has any influence on the appearance of the relationships at a distance. By including leaders as well as employees in the collected empirical material, a broader understanding of the subject is created and a clearer insight emerges about the complexity of the leader's ability to lead and develop strong relationships at a distance. This study is primarily aimed at current and future leaders, in which the leaders can create an opinion and thereby acquire knowledge to be able to more easily plan and carry out their leadership at a distance in the future. The empirically collected material consists of14 interviews, of which two of the respondents are leaders and the rest are employees. The collected data was conducted on two major organizations in Sweden, one state-owned company and the other privately owned. Furthermore, in the empirical material internal documents in the form of guidelines linked to the telework by both organizations is also included. The results from the data collection primarily show that distance itself is not the decisive factor for how the relationships between employees and managers are affected by a work at a distance, but that it largely depends on the type of leadership that the manager exercises. Furthermore, we can state that communication is the factor that affects relationships to the highest degree at a distance, where digitalisation prevents body language from emerging as well as it does physically. Due to the leadership that the interviewed managers are characterized by, the organizational structure has not had any direct significance regarding whether relationships between manager and employees have been affected by remote work. In conclusion, we can state that a hybrid solution, where employees have the opportunity to work both from home and in the office, is seen as the most advantageous alternative from both the employees and managers point of view.