After reading through this past week’s material, I wonder what it means to have a ‘digital community’\u2013something many have now accepted as a given reality for those interacting online for work and play. Do these words overlap sufficiently to be relevant to one another, or are they too different? What are the costs and benefits of launching ourselves into working and collaborating online before we grasp how it affects our humanity?<\/p>\n
This is a relevant question as I, like many, work in a global organization with colleagues and collaborators worldwide on a shared mission. In the past two weeks, I have had three conversations with people on this specific topic, which is fresh in my mind.<\/p>\n
In the United States alone, U.S. Census Bureau statistics show growth in the number of jobs that work remotely, from 4.5% in 2014 to 13.8% in 2023 [1]. That is an increase of 207%. As organizations discover and debate the costs and benefits, where these numbers will stabilize and settle over time remains to be seen. Either way, the growth is significant. Some level of increase is seemingly here to stay.<\/p>\n
Like many organizations, mine highly values the capability to unite our people around a common mission. Ours is defined by our Christian faith and committed to integrating faith and work. This is complicated by the diversity in work environments, including:<\/p>\n
– Two major operating locations (hospital ships) where people live (sleep, work, eat, worship, play, etc.) in the same environment, which are the primary focus of our mission and work,
\n– One headquarters and sixteen national offices where people come into the office regularly, either daily or very often, and
\n– Remote workers across a wide range of locations and time zones.<\/p>\n
Each group has different needs to support their growth and development, with the remote group being the most unique. Teams working together in the same location are much better equipped to develop meaningful and productive relationships with one another. Those on the hospital ships have been uprooted from their home communities and must reestablish ties in their new ‘planted’ location. However, we do not yet have a good understanding of what our remote staff need.<\/p>\n
In Smash The Technopoly<\/em>, Smyth argues that there is a difference between cultures that are “tool-using” and those that are “technopolies,” with the tool-using cultures having moral resources to constrain the use of technologies, and technopolies lacking such resources [2].<\/p>\n Working remotely has notable benefits. These include geographic flexibility, the elimination of commutes that feel like wasted time, a better balance between work and other activities, increased quality of life, and cost reductions. However, we should also consider the opportunity costs of remote work.<\/p>\n In ‘End the Phone-Based Childhood Now,’ Haidt lays out four characteristics of real-world interactions [4] : By nature, remote interactions can lack these characteristics. They become disembodied, frequently asynchronous, and, with shallower relational interactions, the costs of entry and exit are lower. There are also the one-to-everyone interactions that are enabled by technologies such as collaborative messaging software: Microsoft Teams and Slack, for example. The cost of entry and exit to social groups also appear to be different for remote work. After some normalization post-COVID, rates of ‘churn’ or job turnover are higher for remote jobs than in-person jobs [5].<\/p>\n Like many in other organizations in our post-COVID pandemic world, I am now on a journey to discover what can be done to mitigate, offset, or reduce these costs, whether we will have to accept them as the price of the benefits, and consequently deciding where the costs are worth it and where they are not.<\/p>\n What will it take to set up an organization that can retain a sense of togetherness and community when our meetings are conducted via screen panels? Is it possible? Are the benefits worth the costs? Can the costs be reduced?<\/p>\n If you were to ask me today, I’d respond that we don’t need to be together to do our jobs. We need to be together to be human.<\/p>\n Some roles may be well-suited to remote work, and some should not be remote. Work that is relational in nature and reliant on embodied presence will not be well suited. Other types of work may be technically feasible to perform remotely but for which the effects of disembodiment are unclear. Because a surgeon can perform surgery over the Internet with a robot, does it mean they should? Does the physical absence significantly affect their connection to the patient? What factors would contribute to an ethical decision on the matter? I was curious, so I decided to research a little and found that according to a systematic review out of Penn State University [6], few studies described remote telesurgery in humans, and they had considerable variability in approaches. As we begin to explore these technologies, I expect we will learn much more.<\/p>\n I hope we move slower into them than we did with social media so there is time to test, learn, and adjust. Three years ago, I removed all social media apps from my phone, and four weeks ago, I disabled my profiles completely on some social networks. I have personally found no loss to my quality of life with either of these steps. In fact, it has created more time for me to do other things I consider more important.<\/p>\n How human do our interactions remain when we are not physically present? Based on the week’s readings certainly less so, but exactly how much is unclear. I think we are only just finding out.<\/p>\n In conclusion, I am considering updating my Need\/Problem\/Opportunity (NPO) to give more attention to this topic. My NPO is currently framed as meeting the needs of those working in international development settings for an authentic community that lives in (internally\/thinking) and lives out (externally\/behaviour) shalom. I believe it could be more useful\u2013to my stakeholders but also beyond my specific scope\u2013by addressing the needs for a community of shalom for those working in a connected but disembodied world.<\/p>\n [1] Laura Pop-Badiu, \u201cThe Evolution of WFH: A Decade of Changing Work Habits in America\u2019s Top Metros,\u201d Coworking Mag<\/em> (blog), October 1, 2024, https:\/\/coworkingmag.com\/blog\/evolution-of-wfh-americas-top-metros\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n [2] Nicholas Smyth, \u201cSmash The Technopoly!,\u201d March 9, 2023, https:\/\/www.afterbabel.com\/p\/smash-the-technopoly<\/a>.<\/p>\n [3] Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, \u201cOur Work-from-Anywhere Future,\u201d Harvard Business Review<\/em>, November 1, 2020, https:\/\/hbr.org\/2020\/11\/our-work-from-anywhere-future<\/a>.<\/p>\n [4] Jonathan Haidt, \u201cEnd the Phone-Based Childhood Now,\u201d The Atlantic<\/em> (blog), March 13, 2024, https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/technology\/archive\/2024\/03\/teen-childhood-smartphone-use-mental-health-effects\/677722\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n [5] \u201cDandi Insights: In-Person vs. Remote Work,\u201d accessed February 9, 2025, https:\/\/www.itsdandi.com\/blog\/in-person-vs-remote-work\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n– they are embodied,
\n– they are synchronous,
\n– they are primarily one-to-one or sometimes one-to-several, and
\n– they take place within communities that have a high bar for entry and exit.<\/p>\nNotes<\/h2>\n