This month I’m not going to talk so much about tech, so if that is what you are wanting to read, I’ll catch you next time.
Imma come right out and say it…remote work is problematic. Before you unleash the hounds and fire up your Twitter machines to roast me, let me explain. I absolutely HATED working from home during the pandemic. One of the highlights of working in higher education is the on-campus experience. Walking the campus, seeing students learning, instructors finding new ways of teaching…I love all of it. When we had to understandably shift to remote work, I honestly felt like I had been cut off from something that was very important to me. This is a job, yes, but it is also something that I have invested years of time into, and I feel a connection to my campus. When I was able to return on-site it was a fantastic feeling.
As we continued to progress with the “New normalTM”, it became apparent that remote work was here to stay for some staff members. This too was understandable. We had just gone through the world’s largest proof of concept for remote learning and remote work, and it was arguably successful in most respects. Learning continued, work was accomplished, people were productive, and working from home is popular. Imagine not having to get up super early, deal with the commute, and all the fun that comes with driving in traffic for an hour each way each day. It is easy to understand why working from home is popular. But…there is a catch. There is still work to be done on-site and as good as we have gotten at remote troubleshooting and support there still is a need for physical support in the classroom. Student workers are good, but sometimes you do need a more practiced hand to assist. For the in-house integrators among us, I don’t think there is a way to install a projector from home just yet.
With the continued need for on-site staff, we need to acknowledge that there are some inequalities that have emerged, and in a way, almost 2 separate classes of workers. On-site staff still have all the costs that come with working on-site. Parking, travel costs, time, stress, etc., while our work-from-home colleagues don’t feel these same impacts. I’m not saying that is a good thing or a bad thing, it is what it is. But we must acknowledge that remote work is not possible for everyone and stop treating it as some sort of perk. Also, we need to acknowledge that on-site staff experience different working conditions and level the playing field as much as possible so that the inequalities between on-site and remote workers are narrowed as much as possible. I have faith that we will get there. We are still working out the kinks of this new model, but this is something that has been on my mind for a bit so now you all get to read about it. Till next time friends.