Hybrid working is increasingly finding its way into our everyday working lives. In higher education, too, the use of hybrid teaching settings is being tried out in various constellations. In the course HR-Stakeholder Communication, students of the Bachelor’s program in Human Resources Management have taken on different roles and practiced conducting an event for the workforce partly from the lecture hall, partly connected online.
When teaching is held in a hybrid setting, this means that some of the students participate in a course on campus and some of the students participate online, for example via a video conferencing tool. This summer semester, students of the Bachelor’s program in Human Resources Management used a course block to simulate an employee event that takes place in such a hybrid setting.
The subject of HR stakeholder communication was suitable for this purpose, as it involves adopting different perspectives and practicing how to conduct conversations with different stakeholders. A case study with high employee turnover and low employee satisfaction was the starting point for this exercise. Our students took on different roles, from HR managers, management, executives to employees, and simulated holding an event for the workforce where short-term and long-term measures to increase satisfaction were presented and discussed. To complicate matters, employees who work remotely were also connected online to this event and were to be integrated in the same way.
The students participated in this exercise with great commitment and represented their points of view in their respective roles. It was particularly pleasing that the online participants also took an active part and could be integrated very well in the hybrid setting.
In order for role plays to succeed in a hybrid teaching setting, it is advisable to establish clear rules at the beginning. For example, care should be taken to ensure that several people do not speak in the lecture hall at the same time, otherwise the transmission for the online group is made more difficult. An external microphone, external loudspeakers and a second camera to broadcast as many people as possible from the lecture hall are also recommended.
This course was conducted by Brigitte Hampel from the Human Resources & Organization Study Programs.