Change – “Smile, you’re connected!” by Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte
06/02/2021
4 min
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Although the arrival of networks and information technologies in the professional world is not new, the generalization of remote work has seriously reinforced their use by employees who are increasingly connected – sometimes too much. How can you manage your teams through their screens? How do you find the right balance between trust and control? What tools do companies have at their disposal? Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte, PhD in management sciences, researcher at the CNRS and professor at IÉSEG, provides some answers.
By considerably accelerating the use of telework, the pandemic has only reinforced a strong trend. Remote networks, messaging, chat, mobile applications, broadband, virtual offices, tablets and laptops, 5G… by freeing managers and employees from the constraints of time and place, NICTs have profoundly changed professional practices.
There is a kind of historical inversion, explains Aurélie Leclercq-Vandelannoitte. After decades of bringing teams together in a centralized and collective location to ensure controlled production, technology makes it possible to bring work to employees wherever they are.” Not without risk: “The danger is to privilege only reactivity to the detriment of reflection,” says the researcher, mentioning some of the possible drifts.
“Some employees will become over-involved, others will become demotivated, believing that the reality of their work is made invisible by technology. The absence of direct human contact can go hand in hand with a loss of meaning, with workers sometimes feeling reduced to mere operators behind their screens. They are hyperconnected, yes, but to whom, to what and until when?”
Read the full article in the latest issue of our magazine for professionals “Change – A new way of talking business”.
