Adapting to a Hybrid World
- Work and occupational
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About this event
Hybrid working has become the new normal in many organisations.
It has positives: it addresses the "work-loneliness" experienced by employees working entirely from home during the lockdowns, it helps people to maintain a more positive work-life balance, and it is often more economical for employers in terms of managing facilities.
But face to face working is also important. It has both organisational and personal benefits which are entirely different from interactions through email and videocalls.
Those differences have been well established through psychological research, and span a range of human interactions, including neurological processing, the nature of attributions, self-efficacy beliefs and social identification.
The importance of face to face communication has become particularly apparent as psychologists and others work to undo the emotional and psychological damage caused by covid precautions such as mask-wearing.
The damage resulting from that has complex roots, encompassing problems with information processing, metacommunication, and above all, preventing the exchange of smiles.
Smiling is not only a universal aspect of human communication; it serves contributes directly to psychological well-being in many ways. And receiving a smile through a zoom call is not processed in the same way as a direct face to face one.
So the compromise of hybrid working has many benefits; but it also has downsides, which make social psychological insights even more necessary in the world of work than they were before, in order to ensure inclusivity and involvement among all employees.
Simply focusing on the task to hand is, as psychologists have shown ever since the Hawthorne studies a hundred years ago, probably the worst management strategy of all.
The event will be held at:
- The Vicars Hall
Chichester Cathedral
12-13 South St
Chichester
PO19 1EH
And will be followed by the Wessex Branch AGM at 18:00.
About the presenter
Nicky Hayes is a writer, educationalist and consultant psychologist, specialising in social and organisational psychology. Her work includes many years of teaching and examining, and she has written many books on psychology which have been translated into more than 18 languages. She is currently the President of the British Psychological Society, a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Visiting Professor at Suffolk University, and a Council member of the International Test Commission.