Remote Work and Instructional Design
Here’s why instructional design is a great match for remote work: we are knowledge workers! My professional contributions all come from my brain, not my body, so why does it matter where my body is located?
Analysis and consulting work can happen via Zoom conversations, and then eLearning development is largely done is isolation. My work is very modular: I produce a deliverable, send it off for review, and work on another asset while I wait for feedback. No part of that process has to happen in person.
In fact, office environments can be detrimental to eLearning development. Have you ever tried recording audio in a cubicle over the din of voices? Or facilitating a training session while phones ring in the background? I once had my training director suggest the company would install phone booths for us to work in for those situations, rather than be flexible and let us work from home.
Also, this may be silly, but I was always embarrassed to google things I didn’t know how to do when I was working in an office. Because I didn’t want to look ignorant in front of my teammates, I would write down certain tasks to push back until I was in my home office. And I am CONSTANTLY searching Excel hacks, Storyline tricks, Camtasia keyboard shortcuts, etc.
When remote teams are managed well, they can be even more intentional and productive than in-office teams. For example, in my current remote department’s weekly stand-up, we take time to offer each other support. If someone needs help with adding captions to a video, or has a script that needs to be edited, we have processes in place to make sure that collaboration happens.
Being forced to work in person often feels pointless. I had a hybrid arrangement for about 10 months and during the in-office days we still held all of our meetings on WebEx because our team was distributed across 4 office buildings in Indiana, Virginia, California, and Texas.
Bosses who support remote work trust their employees and care about their well-being. The sense I got from an employer who forced me to work in an office was that I was a cog in the machine from which they could extract profit.
Just give me an internet connection and I’ll give you my best work.
