The COVID-19 pandemic made institutions offering undergraduate and postgraduate programs change their approach to a teaching-learning process with a focus on remote working. This change became also observed for the faculty, support staff, and e-learning teams who always delivered online business programs to students. Although some members of these teams had the experience of working remotely to provide online courses, other staff members worked in the office, and they needed to adjust to working from home. Significant transformations are currently observed in the cooperation of faculty members to realize online business programs, and the question is how remote working can influence the faculty’s activities and teams’ work while delivering online business programs during COVID-19.
A range of specific teaching-learning strategies was proposed to be adopted in institutions to enhance the remote working experience and safety. They include the promotion of digital learning by guaranteeing educators and students access to online learning platforms and the introduction of additional digital strategies and media for e-learning (Hodges et al., 2020). Other strategies include in-person support for employees to avoid their social isolation in the work context and the adjustment of schedules and online meetings to address the needs of workers collaborating from different regions of the world (Li, Ghosh, and Nachmias, 2020). Much attention is paid to using several channels of communication online to guarantee team cooperation. However, despite the realization of all these strategies, some outcomes and barriers are reported in the sphere: the necessity to adjust the cooperation of remote teams in developed and developing countries, discharges among the regular staff, changes in monitoring employees’ performance and productivity (Dwivedi et al., 2020), and the attraction of remote workers from developing countries.
Reference List
Dwivedi, Y.K., et al. (2020) ‘Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on information management research and practice: transforming education, work and life’, International Journal of Information Management, 1, pp.1-8.
Hodges, C., et al. (2020) ‘The difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning’, Educause Review, 27, pp.1-10.
Li, J., Ghosh, R. and Nachmias, S. (2020) ‘In a time of COVID-19 pandemic, stay healthy, connected, productive, and learning: words from the editorial team of HRDI’, Human Resource Development International, 23(3), pp.1-12.