Danube Watch 1/2020 - Communication in Times of the Corona Crisis: Finally Embracing a Digital Workplace

B eyond the economic and medical situation, COVID-19 has highlighted in different states around the world not only strengths and weaknesses, but also the requirements of the 21st century. So far, the 2019/2020 global pandemic has emphasized the necessity of a further endorsed digitalised workspace. Digitalisation in Europe, – and more particularly, internet speeds – is still a major issue. Therefore, it was hardly surprising to read in the news about governments‘ policies to reduce video quality to prevent traffic overload on popular platforms such as YouTube and Netflix as a consequence of significantly growing digital traffic. Furthermore, the associated fear of internet capacity being wasted on leisure-time activities while employees and students still need to get their work and studies done online has been eye-opening. A lot of employers either had to or voluntarily offered home office possibilities, which boosted the popularity of video conferencing providers such as Zoom, and office programs to plan and distribute workloads among teams remotely. However, access to drives and databases is crucial for most employees too and while this seems to be such an elementary necessity, it was surprising how often one would hear from friends and family members that they had to head into the office during the COVID-19 lockdown solely because they were not able to access such resources remotely.

As not every employer has the means to hand out laptops or tablets to its employees, the latter are often forced to use their own private devices for work purposes. However, these private devices increase the risk of a company, institute, organisation or association getting hacked. Employers cannot be sure that the user has a suitable anti-virus program in place and a secure internet connection, for example via VPN. For this reason, safe internet and computer usage exercises and training are more important than ever before, especially if companies, institutes, organisations and governments are expecting to be spied on or tracked. This also highlights both employer and employee responsibilities to create a fair home-office working space that is not defined by illegal control mechanisms, arbitrariness, cyber bullying or such by either one side.

Another aspect the COVID-19 crisis highlighted is the high importance of good crisis communication, which is supposed to defend and protect the reputation of a company, government, individual or organisation. Additionally, good crisis communication regularly informs us about current status and addresses questions from the press and/or general public. The pandemic threw into sharp relief how crisis communication differs not only from state to state, but also within a single government, e.g. between different federal states, cities or provinces. In light of COVID-19, the worst-case has been when such different approaches lead to general confusion and misinformation – as well as disregard for essential public measures. When it comes to companies, institutes and organisations, COVID-19 has illustrated why a focal point is indispensable and that there should be always a crisis-communication plan in place that defines how to deal with different scenarios.

A wide array of good and a bad examples of crisis communication have appeared throughout the pandemic: spreading authorised visuals or spreadsheets, plus links to generally accepted sources about COVID-19 facts via social media for example, is helpful and increases the spread of valid information. However, while a picture of colleagues wearing their masks in front of their computer screens during their teleconference doesn’t do anybody any good per se, it still creates a sense of community in isolation, as do photo memories. Be they waiting to greet you on your office wall after lock-down is over, or included in an email attachment to other colleagues to say hi.

Nevertheless, these virtual meetings also highlighted the importance of knowing one’s conference tool of choice and its basic functions. These include muting the microphone, adding multiple participants to the call, camera settings and consideration of ideal backgrounds, but also appropriate clothing. Lastly, the Corona lock-down forced most people to merge their private and business everyday-lives so that a well-chosen office space within the private home became a mandatory provision, albeit not everyone can consider themselves that lucky. Thus, many individuals were forced to make the best out of a comprised space situation at home where also other individuals had to work and make business and/or private calls.

In some homes, lock-down looked like this: working moms and dads, who could not drop off their kids at the daycare, trying to do a split between their individual business meetings and caring for their offspring. Depending on their kids’ age, these working parents had to ensure that their kids have meals, are doing their homework or are kept busy other ways, and to keep the little ones happy but quiet enough to be able to understand their colleagues while on the phone or in a virtual conference (sometimes both parents at the same time). On top of that, the background needs to look clean and put together enough while at the same time mom and dad need to look professional. Somewhere else, a virtual meeting is scheduled and everyone joins the video conference from their respective homes. Person A, B, C and D are perfectly dressed and set up at working desks or converted tables with little private items in the background; person D sits with dripping-wet hair and a cereal bowl spooning in front of the laptop camera; person E joins but leaves the room though forgets to turn off the camera; person F has a sick family member on the phone; person G permits insight into the messy living room; and person H misses the meeting completely.

Even though COVID-19 also forced us to officially keep the offices closed temporarily, ICPDR was able to hold numerous (virtual) meetings during the lock-down situation with e.g. Slovak Minister of Environment Ján Budaj, the River Basin Management Expert Group (RBM EG), and the Accident Emergency Warning System (AEWS, read more about this on page 13) to ensure the sustainable and equitable use of waters in the Danube River Basin.

Catherine Buchwald is a communications professional with experience working for several international organisations and associations in diverse fields such as nuclear security, EU law, migration and health.