Hybrid working – stay in contact and experiment

Last updated on 26 March 2024

Diana Garcia is doing her doctoral research at the School of Business and Economics (SBE). In common with many other PhD students, she comes from another country and knows the specific challenges. “In most cases, you do your doctoral research only with your mentor. So you have little contact with others. You could work for three months without talking to anyone”, says Diana. And if you come from another country, you know very few people here. That can make you feel quite lonely. In addition there has been the coronavirus crisis, resulting in working from home a lot of the time. But Diana and her colleagues have found some solutions and make use of the benefits of hybrid working.

Staying in contact through coffee meetings and buddies

During the coronavirus crisis Diana heard from PhD students at another university that they organised ‘online coffee meetings’ so as to stay in contact with the department. She thought that was a good idea, so together with a colleague at VU Amsterdam and with the help of a secretary she went ahead and organised it for their department of around 30 staff. Everyone in the department gets an invitation to the online coffee meeting every fourteen days. People can register by e-mail. Diana and a colleague then match a PhD student with a lecturer/researcher or professor for an online coffee meeting. Matching involves very little work and achieves a lot. Consequently, the PhD student talks to many more people from different areas of expertise about research and work as well as about life in general.

“During the time that we were able to work more in the office again, some people at the office also arranged similar coffee meetings”, Diana says, “so they were obviously popular”.

SBE has also appointed a buddy in each department. New PhD students can go to that buddy to find their way around the university and their new living environment.

Flexible working hours

Before the coronavirus period Diana worked long days, from morning to evening, and then went to exercise a couple of times a week. She exercised more during the coronavirus period because, in her words, “there wasn’t much else to do”. Diana then discovered that she was more productive when she arranged her working hours differently. She now prefers to exercise, or do something else she enjoys, in the morning and she works in the afternoon and evening. And sometimes it suits her to work a little at the weekend too. “Of course everyone is different”, she says. “If you have a family, you have to divide up your time differently, but it’s worthwhile experimenting to find out what suits you so as to optimise your work-life balance. We now have that opportunity”.

If you would like to know how other VU Amsterdam colleagues utilise the benefits of hybrid working, you can read the interviews on the page ‘Best practices hybrid working’.