This year has seen an enormous shift towards remote work as everyone tries to maintain safe social distancing practices in response to the coronavirus pandemic.
As a long-term distributed company and advocate of remote work, the shift is undoubtedly exciting. However, the nature of the change meant that many companies fell into this new work style without much planning.
And while remote work has many many benefits, these don’t mitigate its challenges.
To understand how our online spaces differ from physical spaces, I spoke with Amira Dhalla, Associate Director at Consumer Reports, who has worked extensively in digital privacy and security as well as the intersection of technology and equity, inclusion and human rights. She shared some pathways to more inclusive practices as well as some examples of how acknowledging our privilege and sharing our resources can lead to more positive, inclusive spaces for all.
Amira’s written about this topic herself as well. She shares some practical tips that are a good accompaniment to this article, so make sure you take a look.
We can’t expect what worked in-person to translate completely into online spaces
To create healthy, functioning and inclusive online workspaces, we first have to understand that it’s unlikely to just happen on its own. We can’t just assume that this will work itself out. Instead, we need to be intentional around developing practices, policy and above all, dialogue around what an inclusive space might look like, and how we can all contribute to the kind of space we want to see.
“I don’t think it’s as easy as just saying, ‘Ok, we’re all online now,’ and that’s it,” Amira says.
“It needs to be more of a conversation.
Organizations spend hours deciding how to optimize their physical spaces for connection and collaboration, but very few have spent the same amount of energy on how that transfers online with employees engaging entirely digitally.”
“There’s so many more aspects to having conversations online that you really have to multi-task at a higher level,” Amira says.
The fundamentals of how meetings run online are different. Understanding these differences can allow us to adjust processes or develop a new policy to meet the differing needs that these spaces require.
“When I meet you in person, there’s a very physical element. Whereas, when I’m online there’s a distance,” Amira says. “As much as I can see you I’m still finding it harder to pick up on cues, I’m finding it harder to navigate conversations, to make sure I’m not getting distracted, to do all these things that I wouldn’t normally have to do.”
When you transition to new spaces, you have to learn the new language or at least learn the new set of social and cultural norms. Transitioning from in-person meetings to online meetings is no different...read more
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