Emma Beckett
@synapse101
Thanks to everyone who responded to the EMCR Forum survey on COVID-related career impacts. While we crunch the numbers on the bigger questions, I have been thinking about working from home, how it has impacted us all differently, and which aspects are the silver linings of the whole messy situation.
Working from home during a pandemic is not standard working from home practice. Some of us already had home offices, others with the space and the money put together home offices in haste, and others settled for laptops on kitchen benches or coffee tables. Some had excellent internet and teleconferencing set ups, others struggled with constant connection disruptions, dropouts and freezing frames. The divide between those with resources and those without was amplified. High-income earners have found the most benefits in working from home.
In many Australian states, parents contended with the challenges of working from home while home-schooling. Despite the gains the STEM sector has seen in gender equity in recent years, it became apparent that women were shouldering the lion’s share of the increased domestic burdens while working from home. Overall, the impacts of increased responsibilities in the pandemic have been worse for women. Particularly in research, productivity has dropped for women and in some cases actually increased for men.
The productivity losses have also been highly field- and project stage-specific. Some research areas require specialised laboratory equipment, human participants or fieldwork that have simply had to be put on hold. Other disciplines have been easily able to continue processing data without interruption. Some of us have been lucky enough to sit down and analyse all that data we have been struggling to find time to get to, while others were right at the start of projects and have had to pivot to other tasks. Those with dual teaching and research roles often found themselves having to simply prioritise their teaching.
Conferences, visiting fellowships, exchange programs and other collaborative opportunities have been cancelled all over the world. For EMCRs competing for grants, fellowships and other opportunities against more established researchers, every lost opportunity increases the divide, which may only become apparent over time.
Parents, those with caring responsibilities, people living with disability and those juggling other commitments have long campaigned for more flexible working options. These requests have sometimes been denied for a variety of ‘reasons’. But when we were forced to switch to working from home, we proved it can be done. Hopefully, this means a more caring and flexible attitude will be adopted to personal requests for flexible work arrangements in the future. The global experience of working from home may afford greater opportunities by opening doors that have previously been excluded for those who are unable to access office spaces.
Regional researchers have always had reduced access to opportunities like training, networking and collaboration due to the burden of distance and the critical mass in the cities. COVID-19 forced organisations, including us at the EMCR Forum, to be creative and move these kinds of events online. Events that would have been presented in person on the east coast were suddenly accessible to the west coast. Virtual events allowed anyone to connect from any location. Suddenly, regional university campuses and industrial sites didn’t seem so far away. Despite not being allowed to travel, many were able to expand their networks.
Working from home during COVID-19 hit some of us hard, but had silver linings for many others. Moving forward, it will be important to recognise the inequities created, and to keep working to rectify these, both for future crises and to improve equity when it’s business as usual. Hopefully, the silver linings that improved access and equity will also be retained and not restricted to periods of emergency. Instead, they could increase accessibility and provide options for everyone regardless of location, disability or caring responsibilities.
© 2024 Australian Academy of Science
