MSc Work and Organisational Psychology / Behaviour Alumni Event

January 26th 2022 saw the year kick off with the first of our MSc programme Alumni events. Alumni from the MSc in Work and Organisational Psychology / Behaviour came together to enjoy a panel discussion on “Hybrid Workplaces: Challenges and Opportunities for the Future”. Speakers included Prof Yseult Freeney and Dr Lisa van der Werff from DCU Business School as well as alumna Sinead Deasy, Head of HR EMEA at Meta.

One of the attendees at the event was Liam Hassett, Managing Director of HDI, also an alum of the programme. Liam kindly agreed to give us an overview of the event:

“It was a very interesting discussion by people at the coalface of implementation and experiencing Hybrid/Remote. As someone who researched it for my thesis it was especially interesting to hear.

It was clear from the panel that Hybrid/Remote is here to stay. I also felt that we remain at the early stages of implementation despite a lot of heavy lifting having been forced on us by the Pandemic response.

I also felt there remains a tension between existing work practices and the emerging processes we are seeing with Hybrid/Remote. The discussion focused very much on how we can complete work remotely that we used to do in the office. I believe we still need to move to redesigning work for the new context rather than adapting existing practices. I think organisations who take this approach will benefit by removing the friction that can build up when we adapt rather than redesign.

The momentum to remote work created by the pandemic remains even as the original driving factor subsides. And we are likely to have the greatest real world work design experiment ever undertaken for years to come. The research has a great opportunity to interact with this implementation and discover what best practice is.

There is no doubt about the large emphasis on employee wellbeing and rightly so. Organisations who ignore it or pay lip service to it will lose out. Equally organisations must find new ways to become efficient in this new environment. The two must evolve together to ensure the best employee experience is sustainable.

The discussion was brilliant and prompted much new thinking for me on a very fascinating subject. The format led to an open discussion rather than a lecture. I felt the audience got a much better perspective on the thought processes behind the panellists which created a really engaging session. Thanks to all for arranging.”