On 5 May, we organized a SWE Europe Inspiration Session: Post Pandemic Working Modes for Engineers to look at how engineers and the companies that employ them are redefining their working modes with the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions.
A lively panel discussion hosted by Anca Eisele, Ethics & Compliance Manager EU at John Deere with insights from Judith Contreras, EMEA Human Resources Director & Spain General Manager at Keysight Technologies, and Kasia Austin, Business Development, Senior Training Consultant at Motorola Solutions was followed by virtual breakout rooms for our community to exchange personal experiences and make new connections.
Starting off with a lighthearted look at experiences of remote work: the good (flexibility and more family time), the bad (lack of social contact with colleagues) and the ugly (having to make your own lunch every day), the discussion produced numerous takeaways, such as:
- Reframe the office as the “new offsite” rather than a place of workstations. It should become a place to build teams, make incentives, foster engagement, and bring culture to life.
- We need to accept, encourage and value the “inefficiency” of time spent together in person compared to ultra-efficient virtual schedules where the next meeting is just a click away. Spontaneous conversations should be valued as well as focused in-person conversations on collaboration and creativity.
- Information and content overload can be a problem. It is important to provide guidance and structured, personalized learning paths.
- Mentorship is increasingly important as engineers experience diverse and evolving challenges, which formal training cannot address alone.
- Performance measurement remains a challenge. Do we always need to quantify performance? Softer measures along the path to success help deliver business objectives. Sometimes we need be able to define success in our own terms.
To bring some of these takeaways to life and build connections in person, join SWE in London for WE Local on 26-27 May!
This session was part of SWE’s new approach to its development in Europe. Want to stay up-to-date and the next SWE Europe virtual session? Subscribe to our global newsletter.
