A November 16 article in The New York Times is a stirring discussion of present and future worker experiences.
In the article (“The Worst of Both Worlds: Zooming From the Office,” https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/16/business/return-to-office-hybrid-work.html), Emma Goldberg describes the current experiences of many people: “…video calls where remote workers have trouble hearing, a sense that people at home are missing out on perks (teammates), while those in the office are, too (pajamas). And the stakes aren’t just who is getting talked over in meetings. It’s whether flexibility is sustainable, even with all the benefits it confers.” …It’s not hard to imagine all of the ways remote workers might be undercut: muted in a heated discussion, shut out of lunchtime bonding. But Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford professor who has surveyed hundreds of hybrid companies, said that at many workplaces the in-person employees felt just as neglected.” One, at least partial, solution Zillow’s “’One Zoom All Zoom’ rule [which] stipulates that if even one person is participating in a meeting virtually, everyone in the office is required to join on separate laptops. Zillow went so far as to take audiovisual equipment off the conference room walls.”
Applied psychologists are not surprised by the conditions outlined by Goldberg. The situations noted are inherent in human nature and will continue to haunt the Zoomisphere until teleconferencing-type technology takes a giant leap forward, at minimum.
Research has shown that in hybrid situations, there is magic in a 3 days in the office, 2 days at home mix. In that configuration, professional performance is good and people maintain social bonds with colleagues. The 3/2 mix is important because when social bonds between two groups, in this case at-workplace workers and at-home workers, degrade a “my group” vs. “the other-group” mentality develops and more positive attitudes toward my-group members build while negative outlooks on the-other-group grow stronger. Not a good workplace situation. Forming in-other groups of this sort is inherent in how human minds operate and will not change for millennia, if ever. The solution: having colleagues spend time together, if at all possible.
As discussed in earlier versions of this article, communication via Zoom and similar technologies is just not as effective as in-person conversations, at least at the moment; advances in the field will overcome barriers such as not being able to make eye contact, assess body orientation (more or less direct), or determine interpersonal distancing, for instance. Making eye contact, or not, for example, gives us important information about what whomever we’re talking to is really communicating. When we don’t feel we actually know what someone is telling us, we can’t solve thorny problems, together develop creative solutions, or form social bonds. People meeting together in a workplace during sessions with remote Zoom-participants will “talk” with co-present others in a richer, more nuanced way than they can with people connecting in to the session with Zoom. Having all participate in sessions via Zoom if even one person needs to do so eliminates this disequilibrium at the expense of the entire group’s performance—but if some employees simply cannot come to the office because of shuttered schools, etc., other reasonable solutions are difficult to identify.
“The Worst of Both Worlds: Zooming From the Office” is an interesting review of many individuals’ professional experience, now, and, probably, for some time to come.
Sally Augustin, PhD, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com). Research Design Connections reports on research conducted by social and physical scientists that designers can apply in practice. Insights derived from recent studies are integrated with classic, still relevant findings in concise, powerful articles. Topics covered range from the cognitive, emotional, and physiological implications of sensory and other physical experiences to the alignment of culture, personality, and design, among others. Information, in everyday language, is shared in a monthly subscription newsletter, an archive of thousands of published articles, and a free daily blog. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009), Designology (Mango, 2019), and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.