A conversation With Pr. Dr. Andreas Eckhardt, Professor of Human Resource Management at the German Graduate School of Management and Law (GGS)
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Dr. Eckhard is an n expert in Digital Transformation in HR Management and on the Adoption, Diffusion, and Use of Information Systems.
Topics:
Organizations that succeed in establishing remote working practices
The challenges faced by remote workers
Collaboration accross locations, time zones, and schedules
Establishing virtual trust
Why the social ties among virtual co-workers are stronger
Professional personas when working from home.
Insights
Three dimensions of successful remote work: The person itself, the technology used for performing work tasks and staying connected to the corporation and collaborating with coworkers, and the relationships An individual has social networks he's relying on for different aspects (...)- if you work from home, you don't necessarily have those kinds of knowledge networks, so at companies have to make sure.
some corporations started to create a community for remote workers where they had the chance to ask some questions and to identify some issues that they have.
Social ties among virtual coworkers (in the 2 researched companies, Buffer and Trello) are stronger because their casual conversations are deeper. The line between private and work live is not defined. "If you see other people in an office settings, they can present their professional self and not the private self" "I provide so much information about my private life, about my social life and about who I really am, and, the same for the others as well, those connections between the virtual workers are stronger". It ss interesting that some technology corporations are offering that people can use a different virtual backgrounds during the meetings.
Dressing for video canference becomes a third type of personas - not purely professional (no one wears suits and ties at home for example) - but not purely personal either - you don't want to wear an old dirty shirt to meet with colleagues.
Now that we are all forced to work from home, corporations can see it as a chance to try out something new. Beforehand, the reason for virtual meetings was cost cutting. Everyone talks about digital transformation for decades yet kept traveling, this could change how we work.
Article referred to in the episode:
Eckhardt, Andreas; Endter, Florian; Giordano, Anthony; and Somers, Paul (2019) "Three Stages to a Virtual Workforce,"MIS Quarterly Executive: Vol. 18 : Iss. 1 , Article 5.
Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/misqe/vol18/iss1/5
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