eResearch Community Continuity During a Pandemic: The MeRC Community Cohesion Strategy

This presentation was given at the 2020 eResearch Australasia Virtual Conference, 19-23 October 2020.Abstract:The transition to an increasingly remote workplace due to the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need to rapidly mitigate three key risks in the Monash eResearch Centre (MeRC) to ensure cohesive team operations and undisrupted support to researchers:The absence of common, remote internal communication channels to effectively replicate the coordination of operations in-office in a timely manner;The absence of a centre-wide channel for external key stakeholder and user communication to ensure standardised and timely notifications; andThe inability to “self-serve” accurate stakeholder and user contact information for communication purposes across the centre.As a result, a Community Cohesion Strategy and Team were established to address gaps that emerged in the operational management of MeRC as staff transitioned to a remote working environment, and to facilitate the rapid dissemination of key centre and operational updates to stakeholders. This drastic change in working environments provided a unique opportunity to implement a framework by which working-from-home arrangements and wellbeing of partially or fully remote teams might be supervised successfully.In this presentation, we highlight the elements that were implemented to address these gaps, in accordance with a number of principal purposes. The strategies were a mixture of social and cultural changes as well as technological solutions.The implementation of the Community Cohesion Strategy within MeRC resulted in the successful transition to a remote workforce supporting researchers at an unreduced capacity, and has improved operational management and preserved team culture that will extend beyond the initial duration of remote working.

本汇报于2020年10月19日至23日举办的2020年澳大利亚电子研究虚拟会议（2020 eResearch Australasia Virtual Conference）上发表。
摘要：受新型冠状病毒肺炎（COVID-19）疫情影响，职场加速向远程化转型，这凸显出莫纳什电子研究中心（Monash eResearch Centre, MeRC）需快速缓解三项核心风险，以保障团队协作顺畅，并为科研人员提供不间断支持：
1. 缺乏统一的远程内部沟通渠道，无法及时高效地复现线下办公场景下的业务协调流程；
2. 缺乏面向外部关键利益相关方与用户的覆盖全中心的统一沟通渠道，难以确保通知发布的标准化与及时性；
3. 无法通过自助查询获取中心内用于沟通的准确利益相关方与用户联系信息。
为此，中心成立了社区凝聚力战略工作组（Community Cohesion Strategy and Team），以填补员工远程办公转型期间莫纳什电子研究中心运营管理中暴露出的漏洞，并助力快速向利益相关方传递中心与业务相关的关键更新信息。职场环境的这一剧烈变革，为搭建可有效监管部分或完全远程团队的居家办公安排与员工福祉的框架提供了独特契机。
本次汇报中，我们将结合多项核心目标，阐述为填补上述漏洞所落地的各项举措。该战略融合了社会与文化层面的变革及技术解决方案。
莫纳什电子研究中心社区凝聚力战略的实施，使得远程办公团队得以满负荷为科研人员提供支持，同时优化了运营管理，维系了团队文化，其成效将远超远程办公的初始周期。