Remote work and online study & what about our human USP?

Is the transition to hybrid working an intermediate form? Why is online learning difficult?
There is a rise of burnout, drop outs, alienation. It is time that we adapt technology to people instead of vise versa.
Can we use technology in all its value to support our unique human skills?
What functions will offices buildings and school buildings have in the future?

Office, remote, hybride working?

Sure, we all can imagine the difficulties which arize 

• if you have to workfrom home with playing children arround you. 
• if you are working, studying in a small room along with different people. 
• You are more likely to be distracted by roommates or tasks that are in sight.

But does this outweigh the time gained of the home/work commute? This time gained can be used for social and family life.

As we automate more and more different tasks, it is important to focus on the development of our human USP.
Such as imagination, empathy, judgment, abstract and critical thinking?

Is the hybrid workplace ideal?

Does “fun” lead to unproductiveness? A Deloitte study found that employees are working 3 hours more per day than before the pandemic.  
But, we as humans are social animals. We got most of our motivation from the people around us or from activities we do together or near to each other.
Do we long for working together?

If we are working remote there will be less chatter at the coffee corner and the cohesion drops. This has an effect on teamwork.
Some managers have tried to make up: they used more digital meetings, emails or chats. But at the end it has backfired.
In addition, sitting and doing digital communication hinders cognitive performance.

How will we use offices in the future? Will they become temporary meeting places to build relationships offline?
Caleb Parker’s podcast made reference to how Salesforce are reframing their office as their offsite location.  In the Guardian Maya Yang wrote the following:

 “Trailblazer Ranch is an exciting new gathering place where employees can forge trusted relationships with their colleagues, learn from one another, get inspired, grow in their career, get trained on the company, and give back to the community in a fun and safe environment,” the company ( Salesforce) said. 

The purpose of an office will be to catalyze precisely the unique human skills, in collaboration with our colleagues.

What about education & learning?

The aim of the schools is to prepare learners for a life after the course.

• How can we ensure that precisely this human USP will be nourished?
• Can this be done online? 
• Are digital learning platforms and learning communities prepared for this?
• And what about the students, how will they react? 

Compared with offline schools, the number of drop outs is much higher in online academies and learning platforms. Recorded lessons are often not as qualitative. It is important to provide the necessary interactions during and after the courses.   

Of course, online learning also has advantages: 

• attending students from different time zones can follow courses. 
• It’s easier for working students.
• The learning groups are becoming much more heterogeneous. If there is interaction and relationships are build (commitments) between learners this is a huge advantage! 

Even though the options are offered by platforms, relationships ( NOT connections) aren’t built that easy. Often good facilitation is lacking. By the way a misunderstood and undervalidated responsability! 

Learning platforms themselves are often very or even overstructured. You find modules, grades and degrees.
Quantitative measurement give us insights in to typical transactional outcomes. Grades, time spend on the course, submitted assigments. If a peer review is requested, we find rarly constructive feedback. Most learners are focused on finishing the assignment, move on to the next module, get the grade. We miss the engagement of the learners by using over structured platforms.

Learning is structured. Thus learning from different digital media (direct answer to the question) doesn’t work effective. To learn from a digital learning environments, requiers from the learner independent learning skills. This is tough and there are several challenges lurking along the learning path. It demands motivation, engagement and involvement!

Motivation is of primary importance as it relates to metacognitive activity and the pursuit of meaningful, deep learning. There is a reciprocity of the interactions between behavioural, environmental and personal factors. External factors play an important role in the causal understanding of the interactions between motivation and performance. In addition, they provide a starting point for interventions that improve motivation, performance, or both. Thanks to a community, we learn from each other. We learn about ourselves, through self-reflection. Through relational positioning we position ourselves in the group. 

Future research on online learning communities and how we can moderate relationships between their members is still needed. The role and responsability of the facilitators (community managers) is often underestimated.

It is a search for a balance between structured offering and the relational.

What is in for us? 

We gather data from lineair designed platforms to mesure engagement. These data are used to transform our employees, students.  Either to make them more productive or improve their well-being.

But isn’t it time to use a different kind of data? 

In teh way that people do not have to adapt to technology, but technology becomes more humane? A technology used for better positioning of the individual in the group? A technology that supports group cohesion?

With BOBIP and R we are building self & collective empowering technology. We do not rely on historical or big data. We observe people as individuals and in groups in order to transform what is in for me into what is in for us.

Referenties

· The revolution yet to come – Bruce Daisley

· Is hybrid work the worst of both worlds?  

· This isn’t an acceleration, it’s a revolution — Antony Slumbers

· Yoga, nature walks: Salesforce opens luxe ‘ranch’ to help remote workers connect – Maya Yang

· Work Bold – podcast- Caleb Parker