Seeing the person behind the tile – psychosocial interaction in digitalised work processes
In the course of digital transformation, work processes have increasingly moved into virtual space. Online meetings, video calls and chats take the place of joint encounters at the workplace; "entering" and "leaving" a room happens with a mouse click and the digital coffee break replaces queuing at the coffee machine. Co-working has become work at a distance, in which interpersonal communication takes place under framework conditions pre-structured by hard- and software.
What effects do digitalised forms of communication have on our cooperation? What role does the presence or absence of the human body play under the signs of digital visibility?
As a systemic coach and dance studies scholar, I am particularly interested in the question of what significance bodily and spatio-temporal aspects have for our interpersonal coexistence. Questions of bodily presence and choreographic organisation directly touch the design of our relationships, which form the core of systemic coaching. At IB Hochschule für Gesundheit und Soziales I have the opportunity to discuss this interest in dialogue with colleagues from Psychology and Sociology. It is not so much about emphasising loss experiences in digitalised forms of communication, but rather within the changed signs of cooperation to "see the human being".
A key role in this context is played by the concept of psychosocial interaction, which encompasses, alongside verbal communication, a broad spectrum of traditional non-verbal communication patterns and spatio-temporal forms of behaviour. This spectrum is limited by the visual restriction in digital video platforms to face and chest area, to the perception of mimicry and hand gestures. (Whole-) bodily actions and spatio-temporal dimensions such as a person's gait, their posture, the possibility to turn away or towards, to change perspectives and regulate distances are properties that literally fall out of the tile-shaped frame.
To deal with digitalised work processes in a solution- and resource-oriented way, we need increased attention to their conditions and effects. As studies from systemic organisational and work psychology show, the goal is, through continuously taking place physically present encounters, to create a trustful foundation in order to act in a "relationship-capable" way also in digitalised work processes (cf. Bachmann/Bravo 2021 and 2022; Olson/Olson 2000). The recurring shared physical presence at the place where people meet and cooperation takes place forms an essential precondition to overcome "virtual distances" and to connect with each other also "behind the tile".