After almost three months of working at home, often in more or less makeshift home offices, many of the faculty's employees have now returned to the university. We have visited offices, clinics and meeting rooms and asked nine of our colleagues what they have missed most and what they have learned from working remotely.

2020.06.11 | Sabina Bjerre Hansen

According to the nine Health colleagues, the compulsory home-working days have given rise to reflection on working life, for example on how much the colleagues mean in their everyday lives. Photo: Private/Health Communication.

"What I missed most was socialising," says Analytical Chemist Tina Slots from Forensic Medicine, seen here together with Tore F. Hardlei – one of the colleagues she has missed. Working from home has given her a personal insight that she wants to utilise in her working life. Which is that things do not always have to go so fast. That it is okay to need some peace and quiet, to say no and to ask for help.

Reimar W. Thomsen, Clinical Medicine, is a registry researcher, so in terms of research it does not make much difference where he works from. But in social and managerial terms, there is a world of difference. He has been looking forward to seeing real people and is worried about whether we will in future almost need to find excuses to meet physically. "Working online works almost frighteningly well."

In the Skou Building, Management Consultant Jeannette Madsen, Biomedicine, has also returned. She tells us that the corona crisis has brought the management team closer together. She is impressed by how quickly they adapted to the new situation and closed ranks to solve important, difficult and pressing tasks at short notice: "We’ve shown that we can solve demanding tasks at short notice – even when working remotely."

Professor Helle T. Maindal from Public Health has missed the social life and all the people who usually drop by and say: "Can I ask you a quick question?" She has learned that online meetings can be really effective, also with many participants, as long as the objective and chairing are clear. She even has a new goal: "I’m going to book time for meeting preparation in my calendar, so it doesn't always end up coming at the tail end of an already long working day."

"It's really good to see the students again," says Postdoc Casper Kruse from DENT, who is back in the clinic like some of the students. He has discovered that he is more social than he thought he was. "I've opened my eyes to the digital tools, and Zoom has worked fine. But I’ve also missed meeting with other people, so I’d be really sorry to see everything being replaced by virtual meetings."

Majbrit Østergård, project finance administrator/business controller at Economics and Management, says that she and her colleagues have really mastered virtual meetings, and she sees great potential in working from home: "It’s efficient and time-saving, and it’s worked well both professionally and privately. But the virtual platforms can’t completely replace good sparring and social interaction with my colleagues."

For Morten R. Nielsen from Building Services, working from home has gone smoothly, but he has missed his height-adjustable desk. He took an extra monitor home and has a good internet connection. And he can take care of his work from home. Which is not the case for all of the colleagues that he has missed seeing. Morten hopes that he can continue to work from home when he needs to immerse himself in a task.

Head of Studies Administration, Lisette Prins, has missed being able to look her employees in the eye. But she has learned that working from home can do something for all of us, e.g. in relation to concentrating on a task. "I think we'll be using working from home better and more targeted. We can utilise the technical possibilities better. For example, I’ve now created groups in Teams so that we can chat together and avoid too many distractions in the office. "

Administrative Centre Manager Nikolaj Harbjerg has been looking forward to returning to his one-person office, because he works more efficiently and can better concentrate here. In the future, he will also politely decline physical meetings outside Aarhus, if they can be held online instead. "The sombre circumstances have acted as a digitisation battering ram, and our level of adaptability is really impressive when it comes down to it. We can learn from that."