SNCO Boards - Should virtual become the normal?

Traffic jams, car breakdown, the squits, power cut, forgot to do the room booking etc…

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Point taken, but I’m also thinking of interview skills such as body language, how someone presents themselves. Stuff like that can’t be properly assessed through a screen.

Plus, handling an interview is equally as important as the interview itself. It’s a valuable life skill that we teach our young people; the screen doesn’t quite give the same experience, does it?

I dont think that’s particularly important anymore…I know of several companies qnd it seems to he growing where face to face interviews arent part of the application process and it’s all done through Skype. Including the job I do l.

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I see what you mean. It saves a lot of resources. I guess I’m just old school!

Although, we’ve found virtual assessments to be somewhat of a help in the NHS, especially for what we class as non-essential calls at present. However, you need to be face to face for the full picture. (I know it isn’t quite the same) :joy:

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I teach as part of my (day) job, and have also been involved in interviews. Teaching online feels to me much more draining than teaching F2F (and many of my colleagues have said the same). After 3 hours, I need a total break. The thought of sitting infront of a computer running interviews for 8 hours absolutely terrifies me.

A problem we are encountering is that ‘online’ teaching, meetings, interviews etc and working from home happened overnight to a lot of people in the middle of March, very little training or instruction. Now many are seeing it as the way forward as it saves money.

It does much more than that. It saves companies money, employees travel money, reduces the impact on the planet due to travelling, allows more time for employees to relax as they aren’t travelling and increases productivity.

Of course, this may vary by job/company.

It really does. Next month i have got to attend 10 training courses at 2.5 hours each. All are in different locations that will require more than an hour each way driving. Now because of covid, they have all moved online.

So i have saved over 20 hours of driving, both a cost saving to the company and a boat load of mileage onto my car. Plus the courses are now discounted because they dont have to pay for venue hire. Win win for everybody involved.

Not forgetting the extra win. I can sit in my study at home in my undercrackers if i want. Total win win.

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Kinda like women in the workplace, when all of the men were conscripted and went off to fight in the war…?

Don’t look at it as a problem, look at it as an opportunity to change the traditional view that work must be done in an office.

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I know I’m not in a total minority when I say that I hate this enforced wfh. I’m really struggling. I’m much less productive, and I miss just “going to work”.

A lot of the work / teaching I do does (normally) involve travelling (Ireland / UK / southern Europe / mid-west US, and that was just the 3 months before lockdown). Although a huge advocate of environmental issues, I don’t feel as engaged as when I am somewhere in person.

Yes, lots of people are fine, but companies* should realise that just because something is cheaper (whether financial or time), it isn’t necessarily the correct solution for many people.

(* I say companies - I’m actually perhaps slightly different since I don’t work for a commercial, profit-driven, organisation)

It’s all well and good saying it’s an opportunity, if only it were that simple. One of the impacts of the ‘online working’ / wfh is firms not having lots of office space, especially in large towns/cities. This will mean less need for service industries, like building services / maintenance contractors, cleaners, food delivery, local shops etc, so impacting a lot of businesses.

I’ve been working from home some days and at work other. If I was just wfh there are aspects of the workplace I would miss, a couple of people at work live alone and have said they’ve needed to come into work, if nothing else to just talk to people in the flesh. People have been stuck indoors and a few people I know have said they’ve worked much longer than they would normally as they’ve lost the routine of coming and going. Then there is the impact on mental and physical health, especially those like I’ve mentioned who live alone and one bloke who told me he’s been eating and drinking more. There is something a bloke who retired years ago told me “you need a reason to get out of bed”, he went to places with his wife, he spent time in his garden and allotment and making things (he had a triple garage that was an engineering and woodwork workshop), as he’d seen people he worked with retire within a year were shadows of themselves, as they didn’t really have a reason to get up anymore. WFH could almost be like this for some.

There is more to this than just cheaper and easier for office based businesses. I know that businesses won’t be too bothered by the effects on others, as the bottom line is all.

It’s been a bit of game since March, but the game will end soon.

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I think virtual / remote boards should be offered as an option; there are very clear advantages for CFAVs (& perhaps some staff who have to attend Wg / Region HQ).

Obviously, if all concerned would have very little travel time, a F2F Board might be appropriate.

Similarly, remote boarding can fit in much better with working shifts / child care, etc, to permit better scheduling for all concerned. As mentioned before, it saves on travel time especially = great for productivity.

During most of Apr / May, I was using Teams 2 - 3 times a day for most days, for “remote” union consultations / negotiations (6 - 8 hrs per day), 6 - 7 people involved. Very simple & productive, especially as we were often split across several countries.

I can see that “close focus” environments such as teaching might not work so well though.

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and even worse for folk who are furloughed…

Perhaps I should have been clearer.

I don’t expect working from home to be the default working method from here on in. There are many, many industries where some jobs just would not be suitable. Plus, there are some people who would struggle.

However, there are lots of people working from home now, that previously wouldn’t have thought it possible, and who may now consider making a request to home work in the future, if not full time, then part time. And since they may have been working perfectly well at home, their employers would have a tough time refusing the request. Indeed, having the opportunity to downsize their premises and save money may be quite an attractive option for them.

Broadband speed increases and capacity, cloud collaborative working and secure storage, and Apps like Teams are increasingly making remote working more feasible - IMO the lockdown has increased the pace in which people would naturally move towards home working.

As the MOD increasingly adopt business practices, and software such as TEAMs is becoming more widespread, it would be entirely feasible to see the gradual filtering through of Virtual meetings to the ATC world - without the Corona virus it may have taken 10 years to get to this point. However, Teams has been crashed out, and we’re discovering that things can be made easier and quicker by doing them virtually.

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