I was waiting for the ‘Aha’
moment in this course and reading the text assigned for this week of the evolution of the global landscape of
the work force and how it will change in the next ten years was what I eager to learn more of. The rapidly changing work force was something tangible that certainly
resonated with my current profession. I work in recruitment for the Masters of
Arts in Teaching program for Bard College. For those of you unfamiliar with
Bard, it is a small liberal arts university in upstate New York. I oversee the
recruitment efforts for the program on the Western United States and work
remotely largely from home and in the field attending colleges and fairs
throughout the western U.S. The work once done in a small cubicle by admissions
and recruitment personnel at institutions throughout the United States can be
largely achieved from the comfort of home with the use of a laptop, IPad and a
smartphone.
Previously, employees had to
hold weekly meetings in the board room as a means of allowing management to
connect and keeping a watchful eye over subordinates. Now, employees are able
to connect by email, text message and Skype or Google hangout
for face to face contact. As a result I am able to hold weekly meetings with my
east coast counterparts in virtually the same manner I would if we were engaging physically with one another together.
The internets impact on my
work as well as my ability to connect with perspective students and
universities across the U.S. is immeasurable. I am able to sign up for numerous
fairs, hold dialogue with department chairs, hold meetings with perspective
students using Adobe Connect and applicants are able to apply to the program using an online platform called Slideroom. Applicants are able to apply globally without the use of a
single document being sent via the postal service saving time and money (with the exception of
official transcripts). According to Friedman, In his communication with entrepreneurs
and innovators from all different types of businesses, large and small said
they have been able to do things they’d had never dreamed possible before
(Friedman, 2007).
Naturally, working remotely has its benefits however
along with many benefits still comes that disconnect one feels from not being
able to regularly interact with fellow coworkers physically. The pros obviously
outweigh the cons as the alternative would have been to relocate to New York
from California in order to work for Bard College. The university has
glocalized, offering a top tier education internationally including Jerusalem. That has worked well for the institution by
expanding its brand oversees by enrolling students that he would have in all
likelihood never attended the Bard. Indeed the world is changing how we think about education and how we apply what we have learned to advance our communities.
Friedman, T. (2007). The World is Flat (3rd ed.) New York: Picador.
I find it interesting that you embody both the concept (living in California and working for a New York college) and the challenge (feeling disconnected). We will explore this more next week!
ReplyDeleteI certainly look forward to that conversation. Although I really like what I do there is a feeling of disconnect working primarily in a digital space.
DeleteConnection and disconnection…as with many things the two states seem to be a matter of perception. What’s good for you is not good for me (or vice versa) depending on perception, situation, motivation, rewards or any number of factors. After reading your description of your work; how you feel technology allows you to do your job remotely but sometimes that remoteness leads to feeling of disconnection I realized that I’m very good at talking loudly and critically about both sides of the issue. Consider the following:
ReplyDeleteMy wife is in the process of winding down her job as a systems analyst. Her company, a multinational corporation, is moving the work of her business unit to another state and closing down her unit here in Connecticut. It’s not relocating the job, it’s relocating the work…the job is being eliminated. But through the internet (LinkedIn to be precise, not from internal company channels) she discovered another opportunity in her company, one that would nominally be located in New Jersey but from her knowledge could easily be performed from a remote location. Her Connecticut base would make travel for meetings, team work, etc. a possibility with some regularity. Already having a great working relationship with some of the senior executives in the New Jersey location, she proposed that she come down and explore the possibilities. When she did all agreed she would be perfect for the job, indeed it was stated that she “raised the bar” for any other candidate. The senior VP thought the remote work with some physical availability might work, even suggesting a 90-day trial of the idea. But ultimately, the hiring VP didn’t come on board, he said he needed his team to be together, the constant in-office interaction was necessary to creativity, agility and productivity. He didn’t want to try it. So of course I immediately declared him to be a 21st century Luddite, with limited ability to understand the world as it is and that a job that would be providing remote support training and development of far-flung locations can easily be performed by a team of analysts, trainers and developers who are equally far flung! Why would anyone entrust a project of this nature to someone who can’t embrace the modern world?
Let’s move over to my job now. I’m a department chair at a small university in Connecticut. One of my biggest responsibilities is the constant development and enhancement of our curse offerings. As with many of colleagues, I’ve been clamoring for increased instructional design support. In our efforts to really develop the ID function we’ve gone through many processes and attempts, all with the intent of returning to and maintaining our leading position in online education and re-establishing our status as real innovator in course delivery both online and on-campus. One of the results of our current strategic efforts to do that has been the hiring of a number of highly qualified instructional designers. The designer assigned to assist my department is located somewhere in Idaho. My reaction on getting this news was “this is outrageous, how can I work with somebody in a tree-house in Idaho? (Are there tree-houses in Idaho???) I need to be able to walk across the campus and talk to Instructional Design, I can’t work with somebody who doesn’t know what we’re all about!”
Guilty of hypocrisy as charged.
The idea that we will all move easily to accept the new ways of work is an idea that is test daily. As I said in another comment elsewhere, I’m not sure whether the current trends in “world flattening” are causing me to adopt new attitudes of finding ways to reinforce old ones in new and different ways.
I want my cake and I surely want to eat it too.
I love this response because you represent more people than you know. You have quite possibly nailed down the 21st century technological conundrum in one post. Surely, it would be understandable to expect that your instructional design personnel be physically within reach and also find it outrageous that your wife could not reap the benefits of working remotely. The problem is simple in business as it is in life. We want it all and are appalled when we can not have it. If I ran a fortune 100 company I would expect my key personnel to be within 20 feet of my office. But the reality is, we live in a technologically advanced age and we need to consider that the most qualified individuals are not next door, the next town or the next state. Therefore, as a Fortune 100 CEO I must come to grips with the reality that my companies long term success is predicated on hiring people who are not physically present at all times.
DeleteI was curious on how your department handles recruitment in the sense of working across various cultures, especially with the online nature in which it is done today. Common speech and grammar and other language related issues are often an issue across people in the same area when communicating online, how is it addressed in admissions? And especially aboard?
ReplyDelete