offbeat

Wheels turning on the road and in government

Tesla’s Cybercab’s wheels have only just hit the asphalt for its commercial launch and the autonomous vehicle has already attracted the attention of the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

The body announced an investigation into Tesla’s self-certification of the vehicle at the weekend. Central to the probe is the fact that the Cybercab famously lacks conventional controls.

The NHTSA says there are “clear vehicle performance requirements” – stuff like brake controls – that “in order for automakers to access the US market, they must certify that their vehicles meet these standards – subject to oversight from the agency to confirm compliance. When certified vehicles appear to not adhere to these requirements, NHTSA conducts an investigation.”

The NHTSA is updating the requirements for autonomous vehicles designed never to be operated by a human, but Tesla appears to have jumped the gun somewhat, prompting the agency to open an Audit Query (AQ) just hours after the Cybercab began a commercial rollout on the streets of Austin, Texas.

Tesla told the NHTSA that it had certified the Cybercab “as compliant with all applicable Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS).”

The vehicles lack permanently attached manual controls such as a brake pedal, accelerator, steering wheel, or mirrors. In the AQ, the agency wrote it intended to “examine the process and technical data on which Tesla relied when certifying the Cybercab and related issues.

“Among other things, NHTSA will consider the extent to which Tesla’s certification depended on determinations that certain FMVSS are inapplicable to the Cybercab.”

Tesla is not the only company with autonomous vehicles ferrying passengers around on US roads without using conventional controls in the cabin. Amazon tentacle Zoox, for example, was granted a two-year exemption [PDF] at the end of July 2026, with the proviso that “not more than 2,500 exempted vehicles are introduced into interstate commerce for commercial deployment in any 12-month period.”

There is therefore precedent. However, the NHTSA wants to see how Tesla came up with its self-certification for the Cybercab. NHTSA Administrator Jonathan Morrison said, “NHTSA fully supports the safe development and deployment of automated vehicles. But as the federal regulator, we need to ensure that all of our laws are followed.”

The agency noted, “When certified vehicles appear to not adhere to these requirements, NHTSA conducts an investigation.” ®

We’re expecting details about the ‘Ocarina of Time’ and other Zelda projects during the 30-minute stream.

TECNO spent years treating phones like cameras that happen to make calls. CAMON Slim 5G doubles down on that idea and then flattens the whole package until it sits 6.39 millimeters thick, which is thin enough that a stack of two credit cards still looks bulky next to it. Official launch materials call the handset an art piece you hold in your palm, and the company is not being modest about the paint jobs. Five finishes arrived with the September 7, 2026 announcement: Burgundy Red in fiberglass with a matte velvet grain, Matisse Black with fluorescent green cut-out accents, Rebel Pink on a black body, Van Gogh Blue with a patterned gradient that tries to spin like the sky in The Starry Night, and Neo Mondrian, a photochromic white slab that only shows Piet Mondrian’s grid when ultraviolet light hits it.

The dimensions are 162.58 x 77.27 x 6.39mm, and the launch coverage puts the weight at 190 grams, which is very light considering you’re carrying a 6,000mAh battery in your pocket. A 6.78-inch flat 1.5k AMOLED panel makes up the majority of the phone’s face, with a 144Hz refresh rate with 2160Hz PWM dimming. It also has TUV Rheinland low-blue light certification. The good news is that Wet & Oily Hand Touch Recognition 2.0, Rain Touch, and a Waterproof Case Touch allow you to tap the screen with wet fingers, so a damp commute or a kitchen splatter will not render the screen unusable. The 5G duties are handled by Mediatek’s Dimensity 7300e, which combines four 2.5GHz Cortex-A78 cores with four A55 cores and a Mali G610 GPU. In terms of memory, the phone has 8GB of RAM and either 128 or 256 GB of storage, and it comes with HiOS 16 on top of Android 16 with a promise of three major OS updates and five years of security patches, all with TÜV SÜD backing 60 months of claimed smoothness

Sale

Samsung Galaxy S26 Ultra, Unlocked Android Smartphone, 256GB, Sky Blue

• PRIVACY DISPLAY: Automatically hide your screen from those beside you. The built-in privacy display can be preset¹ to turn on when receiving…
• TYPE IT IN. TRANSFORM IT FAST: Enhance any shot in seconds on your smartphone by using Photo Assist² with Galaxy AI.³ Add objects, restore details…
• NIGHTS, CAPTURED CLEARLY: From gigs to city lights, record and capture moments after dark with clarity using Nightography so your photos and videos…

The cameras in this phone are the major reason you’d consider purchasing one. There’s a 50 megapixel Sony LYTIA 700C sensor that’s 1/1.56 inches in size and uses an f/1.8 lens with closed-loop ball motor autofocus and optical stabilization, as well as AI-driven electronic stabilization and an AI-controlled shutter to provide a three-part stability system. Then there’s the 8-megapixel ultra-wide lens at f2.2, which covers nearly 112 degrees. Super-Zoom Flashsnap allows the software to capture action photographs without the need to press any buttons, and it can even fire off a 2x telephoto shot at speeds of up to 1/11,236 of a second, which is ideal for capturing concert or match photos provided you’re happy with digital zoom rather than a true long lens. Multi-focal pictures have framing options of 24mm, 35mm, and 50mm, and TECNO’s Universal Tone skin tone engine is a fancy piece of kit that will ensure your portraits look their best day or nite. The front-facing camera is 32 megapixels.

For such a slim phone, durability shines through. Ratings include IP66, IP68, and IP68’s more heavy-duty cousin IP69, as well as a MIL-STD-810 drop and shock certification. TECNO is making a huge fuss about underwater photography, claiming that it is a true feature rather than a hoax. Charging the 6,000mAh pack takes 45 watts, a drop down from the 60-watt 4G Camon Slim that debuted earlier in 2026, but it allows them to fit a larger battery into a phone that now supports 5G. Along with the phone, you get a magnetic Mag Badge attachment with its own little battery, and it has a 1.73-inch AMOLED display. Bluetooth allows you to connect it as a wearable mini-gallery of images, a remote shutter that works well up to roughly 10 meters, and a selfie preview that allows you to see your own face without having to flip the phone around. The hardware also incorporates two speakers with Dolby Atmos, NFC, an infrared blaster for controlling home appliances, a USB-C connector, and an in-display optical fingerprint reader to complete the package.

Pricing is kept locally. Bangladesh is the first market to learn about the prices, with the 8GB plus 256GB model listed at 59,999 taka ($488) during an early September pre-order window, while everyone else is still waiting to find out when it will be available and whether they will receive a 3-month Google AI Plus trial with 2TB of storage in the countries where it is available. CAMON Slim 5G won’t win any speed races against the latest and best silicon, and video max out at 2K30, according to early reports, but that’s not important.
[Source]

public sector 

MPs welcome move but still want answers over how the conflict of interest was allowed to arise

Matt Clifford is stepping down as chair of the UK’s taxpayer-funded Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), just days after saying he intended to keep the job while working for AI giant Anthropic.

Clifford, one of the architects of the UK government’s AI strategy, said in a LinkedIn post on Monday that he would leave ARIA, less than a week after his appointment as Anthropic’s managing director of international affairs prompted warnings of a “clear conflict of interest.”

“Having completed my first full term last month, I have decided to step down to ensure my new role at Anthropic doesn’t become a distraction from ARIA’s incredible work,” he said.

The decision reverses the position outlined when Anthropic announced Clifford’s appointment as managing director of international affairs last week. At the time, he intended to remain as ARIA chair, with safeguards put in place to manage potential conflicts between the two roles.

He said the Secretary of State had asked him to remain until November 6 while a new chair is appointed, and that he had agreed to do so “with appropriate safeguards against potential conflicts in place.”

The overlap between the roles had already attracted scrutiny in Parliament.

Dame Chi Onwurah, Labour MP and chair of the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, warned last week that Clifford’s plan to retain the ARIA role while working for Anthropic created a “clear conflict of interest.”

ARIA invests taxpayer money in high-risk scientific and technological research, including AI-related work. At Anthropic, Clifford will lead the company’s engagement with governments outside North America.

Onwurah welcomed Clifford’s decision on Monday but said questions remained about how the original arrangement was approved.

“It’s right that the conflict of interest between the taxpayer funded ARIA and Anthropic has been addressed through Matt Clifford’s decision to step down as ARIA’s Chair,” she said.

“However, important questions remain. Last week, I wrote to the government seeking clarity on how this situation arose, what conflict of interest assessments were undertaken and what safeguards are in place to protect confidence in ARIA’s governance. I expect a detailed response in the upcoming weeks.”

Clifford has become an influential figure in UK AI policy. As well as chairing ARIA, he helped establish the Frontier AI Taskforce, which later became the AI Security Institute, worked on the UK’s 2023 AI Safety Summit, and wrote the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan. ®

If you uploaded an ID to a scam website, stop communicating with the operator, preserve evidence, secure any exposed accounts, and contact the document issuer through an independently verified channel. Do not automatically report the physical document lost or pay anyone who promises to delete the uploaded copy.

The correct response depends on whether the website received only an ID image or also obtained a selfie, password, payment information, one-time code, or access to your device. Act on the most sensitive item first.

Quick Take: The First Actions to Complete

Use phone numbers and web addresses obtained independently from an official government page, bank card, banking app, or account you already trust. Contact details supplied by the suspicious website may lead back to the scammer.

Assess Exactly What the Website Received

An uploaded ID is not a single, uniform type of exposure. A front image of a driving licence creates a different response requirement from a passport scan combined with a live selfie, email password, and one-time verification code.

A photograph of an ID can remain useful to a criminal even when you still hold the original. However, exposure alone does not prove that an account has been opened or that the document must be cancelled. The response should reduce foreseeable risks without creating unnecessary replacement costs or travel problems.

What to Do in the First Hour

1. Stop all communication. Do not threaten the scammer, ask for deletion, or provide a clearer image to “complete verification.” Block the contact after preserving the conversation. Deleting a message from your own chat does not establish that the recipient deleted its copy.
2. Create an incident record. Write down the exact document and fields exposed, including name, address, date of birth, document number, signature, expiry date, selfie, password, card details, and verification codes. Save screenshots, email headers, telephone numbers, transaction references, the page address, and the approximate upload time. Do not distribute the exposed ID again when reporting unless an official process specifically requires it.
3. Secure your email account first. Email is commonly used to reset other accounts. From the provider’s official app or a typed address, change the password, inspect recent logins, remove unknown devices, check recovery addresses and telephone numbers, and review forwarding rules. Sign out other sessions where the provider offers that control.
4. Replace exposed and reused passwords. Create a unique password for the affected service and every account where the same or a closely related password was used. Prioritize email, banking, mobile-carrier, cloud-storage, government, and cryptocurrency accounts. The UK National Cyber Security Centre similarly advises changing passwords on every account that uses an exposed password and using a passkey where available in its post-phishing guidance.
5. Enable stronger authentication. Add a passkey, security key, or authenticator app where supported. Save recovery codes somewhere the scammer cannot access. Do not approve unexpected login prompts. If the scammer obtained a one-time code, tell the affected provider because the code may have completed an action already.
6. Contact financial providers. If you submitted card or account details, call the number printed on the card or use the bank’s authenticated app. Ask the fraud team whether the card or account should be restricted or replaced. Review recent transactions and turn on alerts. The payment-method comparison explains why card, bank-transfer, e-wallet, and cryptocurrency incidents require different recovery routes.
7. Check the device. Merely uploading a file through a browser does not automatically mean the device is infected. Risk rises if you installed an app, browser extension, configuration profile, remote-access tool, or downloaded file. If that happened, disconnect the affected device from sensitive work, update its security software, and run a full scan. The FTC’s malware response steps recommend scanning before changing passwords when malware may be capturing credentials. Use another known-clean device for urgent banking or password work.

If the incident involved a cloned gambling site, preserve its domain and compare it with the checks in How to Spot a Cloned Online Casino Website. Do not return to the suspect page to collect evidence if doing so requires another login, download, or payment.

Do Not Report a Document Physically Lost Unless It Is Missing

A copied document and a missing physical document are not always handled identically. Incorrectly reporting a passport lost can invalidate it and disrupt travel.

For example, the U.S. Department of State says that a person generally does not need to file a lost-passport report when the physical passport remains in their possession. Its passport fraud guidance instead directs people concerned about compromised passport information to identity-theft resources. That is a U.S.-specific rule, not a global replacement policy.

Ask the Issuing Authority What It Can Flag or Replace

Contact the agency using the address or telephone number on its official government website. Explain that an image was submitted to a suspected fraudulent website while the physical document remains with you. Ask:

• Can the document number be flagged for suspected misuse?
• Does the agency accept a report when only a digital copy was exposed?
• Would replacement issue a new document number?
• What evidence or police report is required?
• Would cancellation affect upcoming travel, driving, residency, or identification checks?
• How should you report an application or account created in your name?

The answer may differ for a passport, driving licence, national identity card, residence permit, employee badge, or student card. Replacement is a decision for the issuing authority and document holder, not the scammer.

Report the Scam Through a Local Official Channel

Use the national consumer-protection, cybercrime, police, or identity-theft reporting service available where you live. U.S. users can create a tailored recovery plan through IdentityTheft.gov. UK users can report suspicious websites through the NCSC and report financial loss through the relevant fraud or police channel.

A report may not immediately remove the copied file, but its confirmation number and timestamp can support later disputes. Keep the report with your incident record.

Protect Credit, Banking, and Identity Records

Credit Freeze Versus Fraud Alert in the United States

These controls apply to U.S. credit files. They should not be presented as universal services.

According to the FTC’s freeze and alert comparison, both controls are free. A freeze lasts until it is lifted, while an initial fraud alert lasts one year and can be renewed.

Check More Than a Conventional Credit Report

Review credit reports for unfamiliar accounts, inquiries, addresses, or collections. Also inspect existing bank, e-wallet, mobile-carrier, and cryptocurrency accounts for changed recovery details or unfamiliar verification attempts.

Traditional credit reports may not show every checking-account application. The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau explains that checking-account reports can contain applications, openings, closures, and check-writing information. This is an edge case worth checking when an exposed ID could be used to open a deposit account rather than obtain credit.

Use the Equivalent Controls in Your Country

Outside the United States, ask the relevant credit bureau, bank-account reporting system, document issuer, and cybercrime authority what preventive flags or reports are available. Do not submit more identity documents to a website found through an unsolicited message. Locate each institution independently.

If the scam originated from a supposed casino verification request, confirm the operator and domain through the process in How to Verify an Online Casino Licence. A licence logo or number displayed by the suspect website is not independent confirmation.

Containment is complete only when you have checked the systems that can be used to regain access or impersonate you. Confirm the following:

If money is missing or a withdrawal dispute led you to the fraudulent site, separate identity containment from the transaction investigation. The guide to a pending or rejected casino withdrawal explains legitimate payout checks, but a verified scam should be handled through the payment provider and authorities rather than ordinary casino support.

Failure Modes and Troubleshooting

Monitor for Delayed Misuse

A clean account review today does not prove that the uploaded copy was destroyed. Criminals may retain information, combine it with later data, or use it in follow-up social engineering.

For at least the following 12 months, review important statements and reports on a regular schedule. Watch for password-reset messages, one-time codes you did not request, credit inquiries, new bank or mobile accounts, debt-collection notices, tax or benefit correspondence, and identity-verification emails from unfamiliar services.

Maintain a dated incident log. Record each alert, institution contacted, representative, case number, and outcome. If actual misuse appears, update the original report and preserve the disputed application or transaction details.

An ID-and-selfie package deserves particular attention because it may resemble a remote verification submission.

Key Takeaways

Frequently Asked Questions

Many researchers and students in Kenya, Rwanda, and Uganda struggle to access and publish scientific and technical articles because of financial barriers including publishing fees and subscriptions to research libraries. To help, IEEE has made its Xplore Digital Library more accessible by offering discounts on subscriptions and lowering fees to publish articles. But the number of papers published by technologists in the three nations still lags behind those from other developing countries.

It might be that many researchers haven’t received training in methodology, been instructed on how to write academic articles, or fully understand the process for publishing in scientific journals.

Staff from the IEEE Publication and Information Products group and IEEE volunteers held educational workshops this year in the three countries. The sessions covered the publishing process, IEEE publication outlets, ways to ensure the integrity of research papers, and tips for making better use of IEEE Xplore.

“We want to make sure those in this region are on par with other research communities and ensure they have the support and knowledge they need to make informed publishing decisions,” says Kristopher Zakrzewski, the IEEE area manager for Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and parts of Central Asia. “Our goal is to give them the tools they need to increase visibility and allow them to participate in global conversations in the technology space.”

Workshops on the publishing process

More than 120 participants attended the workshops, which were held in February at the Novotel Nairobi Westlands hotel, the University of Rwanda, and Makerere University, in Kampala, Uganda.

IEEE volunteers who are also authors showed attendees how to prepare, submit, and publish papers. They covered the peer-review process and the benefits of working with IEEE, which publishes about 30 percent of the world’s technical literature on electrical engineering and computer science.

IEEE Senior Member Nelson Ijumba presented at the session in Rwanda. Member Kennedy Ronoh led the Nairobi workshop. Sheila N. Mugala spoke to attendees in Kampala.

“The great thing about these sessions,” Zakrzewski says, “is that each had a local author who presented tips and best practices to ensure that new and returning authors have the information they need to prepare their paper for submission, determine where best to publish their article, and find the right journal or conference that would be the best fit for their research.”

One of the facilitators at the Uganda session was IEEE Senior Member Mayur Kumar Chhipa, head of engineering at the International Business, Science, and Technology University in Kampala and vice chair of the IEEE Uganda Section. The university has about 200 engineering students and about 50 researchers.

More than 100 people attended Chhipa’s session, where he shared practical guidance on conducting literature reviews and identifying high-impact research.

“Researchers in Uganda typically present their paper at an IEEE conference, and that’s it,” he says. “What we’re trying to do is encourage them to take the next step and get their paper published in an IEEE journal.”

He encourages his students to submit a summary of their thesis to an IEEE conference, he says.

“Otherwise,” he says, “their thesis sits in the university’s library or collects dust on a bookshelf.

“When you publish your research, the world knows you are a scholar who has done good work. Having a paper published at a conference or in a journal can help you get into a master’s program globally.”

IEEE Xplore access

Attendees were given an overview of the features of their IEEE Xplore subscription. The digital library contains more than 7 million technical documents from industry-leading journals, conferences, ebooks, and eLearning courses, as well as partner content.

IEEE provides access to the library to more than 50 universities in Kenya through a subscription agreement with the country’s Library and Information Services Consortium, which includes university and public libraries and research institutions. Sixteen universities in Uganda and one institution in Rwanda receive discounted subscriptions.

“It was really important to establish the direct correlation between having access to the technical literature and the publishing output from their university and the region as a whole,” Zakrzewski says.

Many publishing options

The workshops covered publishing options offered by IEEE. That includes both traditional and open access journals, with more than 200 periodicals in total.

There are approximately 180 hybrid journals, which contain a mix of subscription-based and open-access articles, and 30 gold open access journals.

Open access is a publishing model that makes scholarly research and literature freely available online to everyone. Instead of institutions paying for subscriptions, authors or funders typically pay an article processing charge (APC) of between US $2,160 and $2,800 to have their piece published. IEEE offers authors in Kenya a 50 percent discount off the APC rate, and authors from Rwanda and Uganda can publish in IEEE open access journals for free.

The open access program provides authors with greater visibility for their research and enhances discoverability, Zakrzewski says, leading to an increased number of references and citations.

Publishing with IEEE opens additional opportunities including scholarship awards, research assistant job offers, networking opportunities, and speaking engagements.” —IEEE Senior Member Mayur Kumar Chhipa

IEEE Xplore contains more than 200,000 open access articles, he notes. More than 109,000 articles have been published in IEEE Access, a multidisciplinary open access megajournal.

“IEEE supports author choice,” Zakrzewski says. “We really want to make sure that an author has the option to publish the research that will meet any consortium, funder, university, or coauthor requirements—which is why we’re focusing on growing our open access program to complement our traditional publishing program and offer more options to authors.”

The sessions are having an impact

Participants at the Uganda session told Chhipa that they appreciated the IEEE Xplore Digital Library demonstrations and found the guidance on academic publishing valuable.

“Many attendees mentioned that the session helped them better understand how to search for relevant literature, evaluate the quality of research papers, and write stronger manuscripts for publication,” he says.

“I have observed increased interest among students and faculty in using IEEE Xplore as their primary research resource,” he adds. “Researchers are also more aware of ethical publishing practices and are developing stronger research proposals and manuscripts.

“The program contributes to building a stronger research culture by encouraging evidence-based research, international collaboration, and higher-quality publications, which will ultimately enhance the global visibility of research from Uganda and Africa.”

Publishing has its privileges

Chhipa says getting your research published has many benefits, and IEEE staff and members agree.

IEEE and several of its societies offer student grants to help cover the expense of traveling to conferences and presenting papers. The money typically covers airfare and a hotel room. Some grants also pay for conference registration fees, Chhipa says.

Chhipa assists students at his university with writing and submitting research papers to IEEE journals and conferences. Students gain confidence when their paper gets accepted, he says. One who attended the recent IEEE session was informed that his paper was accepted by an IEEE conference—which Chhipa says he was excited about.

He encouraged that student to apply for a travel grant.

“Maybe he’ll get it. Maybe he won’t. But at least he learned how to write a paper, apply for a visa to attend the conference, and book an airplane ticket,” Chhipa says. “It will help him grow personally and professionally.”

Presenting a paper at an IEEE conference can be life-changing, he says.

“It opens additional opportunities,” he says, “including scholarship awards, research assistant job offers, networking opportunities, and speaking engagements. This is how publishing a research paper in the IEEE Xplore Digital Library can directly, positively impact the life of students and scholars from Africa, especially Uganda, Rwanda, and Kenya.”

David J Finch and Christian Cook of Mount Royal University explore the pros and cons of flexible working and the unforeseen impact for less experienced professionals.

Six years after the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the shift to remote work, hybrid and remote arrangements have become an established part of the labour market. About one in five Canadians now works remotely some or all of the time.

For many employees, this shift has brought greater autonomy and flexibility. Time previously spent commuting can instead be spent with family or friends. Research has also found that hybrid work can improve employee retention without sacrificing performance.

These benefits, however, may not be experienced equally. Remote and hybrid work may be particularly difficult for employees who are at the beginning of their careers, when much of their professional development still depends on learning from experienced colleagues. Our new report, ‘The End of the Water Cooler: The Hidden Cost of Remote and Hybrid Work on Entry-Level Employees‘, examines this problem.

Much of how we learn is informal

Think about your first professional job. Much of what you learned probably didn’t come from an employee handbook. You likely learned by observing those around you.

You heard how they approached a problem. Someone pointed out a mistake before it became a larger one. A mentor invited you to a meeting. You asked questions over coffee. You learned who fixed what, who to trust and how things really got done.

These are forms of tacit learning: knowledge that is difficult to codify and is often acquired through observation, experience and social interaction.

The workplace has traditionally provided an environment where this learning occurs alongside formal training. Over time, these interactions help employees develop judgement, confidence, professional networks and an understanding of how their organisations operate.

A study of software engineers illustrates the importance of proximity. Employees who sat near their teammates received 18.3pc more feedback on their code and produced higher-quality code. The gains were concentrated among younger and less tenured employees, who were still building human capital.

There is also evidence that remote work is affecting who gets hired. Employers are hiring fewer young workers for jobs that are easiest to do remotely. An emerging global study found that by 2025, early-career workers made up a substantially smaller share of new hires in highly remote-capable occupations. When researchers tested AI as an explanation, its effect largely disappeared. The remote-work effect remained.

Canadian hiring data shows similar trends, as entry-level professional jobs remain more likely to be on-site, while flexibility grows with seniority.

Those who need mentoring most

Younger workers also appear to place considerable value on opportunities for development and mentorship. Only 23pc of remote-capable Gen Z employees in the United States say they would prefer to work fully remotely, compared with 35pc of older generations.

A 2025 Deloitte survey found half of Gen Z respondents said they wanted a manager who would mentor them, while only 36pc said they were receiving that mentorship.

This creates a potential mismatch between where flexibility is available and where opportunities for learning may be most needed.

But experience must be acquired somewhere. If employers primarily hire workers who already have the skills they need, rather than developing those skills internally, fewer young workers get the opportunity to build experience in the first place.

A problem that is easy to miss

The effects of reduced informal learning can be difficult for organisations to detect.

Employers can readily track completed projects, meetings and other outputs, but they are less likely to measure whether a junior employee has developed professional judgement, built relationships across an organisation or learned how to navigate problems independently.

Research suggests that remote work can change those relationships. A study of more than 61,000 Microsoft employees found that company-wide collaboration became more siloed when employees worked remotely, with employees communicating more within existing networks and less across organisational boundaries.

This is particularly relevant to early-career workers, who have not yet built extensive professional networks. Professional development depends partly on access to people who can provide information, feedback and opportunities.

Design hybrid work around learning

A return to five days in the office is not necessarily the solution. Research suggests that well-designed hybrid work can preserve flexibility without sacrificing performance or advancement.

The question is not whether employees should work remotely, but how organisations should structure remote and in-person work so employees can still develop their skills.

Employers need to design hybrid work around skill development, not attendance. Some forms of learning that once occurred informally may now need to be supported more deliberately. That means identifying which activities benefit from in-person interaction and making sure early-career employees have access to them.

This also puts responsibility on more experienced workers and managers. Mentoring, feedback and exposure to how work is actually done are essential to developing professional judgement and learning organisational norms.

Post-secondary institutions face a similar challenge with work-integrated learning. The value of a placement depends not simply on whether students gain workplace experience, but on the quality of supervision and their access to experienced professionals.

Governments that fund work-integrated learning programmes should therefore place greater emphasis on developmental outcomes new graduates transition to the workforce.

Hybrid work has given many experienced workers more control over their time. But preserving this flexibility cannot come at the cost of compromising the development pathways of the next generation. Whatever our role or level of experience, we all have a part to play in making sure those opportunities continue.

Dr David J Finch and Dr Christian Cook

Dr David J Finch is a professor for innovation and marketing at Mount Royal University. He holds a PhD in management and a doctorate of design. He is an active educator, scholar and practitioner. He has numerous academic appointments, including as a professor and senior fellow at Mount Royal University’s Institute for Community Prosperity and a visiting fellow at the Henley Business School at the University of Reading UK. He has also taught at the University of Calgary and Ohio University. He specialises in labour market dynamics, focusing on the increasing demand for adaptive and open learning systems. 

Dr Christian Cook is a professor of human resources and an academic director at Mount Royal University. Her teaching focus is in the field of human resources (HR) and her expertise is greatest in the areas of HR strategy, employee relations, leadership development, adult learning, employee performance, and organisational learning and development. In 2017, she was the recipient of the MRFA Teaching Excellence Award. Prior to a career transition to teaching and research, she worked for more than 20 years across several large, international organisations and has held the Chartered Professional in Human Resources designation for more than 20 years. 

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