COVID situation and work arrangement.

[kerprof]

Couple of my PhD students in my research group has recently got COVID. It is highly likely that they contracted/passed COVID during one
of the lab presentation/meeting. Also due to the  relaxations of the mask restrictions, most of us the students dont like to wear mask in the lab.

With this situation, I am not sure if it is a right idea to REQUIRE the students to work in the lab in regular set timings say 10 AM to 5 PM. If I allow the students to work freely wherever they want, how to ensure they are productive. I am hoping that the students work sincerely at least 40 hours per week.

Some of the considerations are as follows:

1. Most of the students are mostly involved in computer science/data science type of research, where there is no need to be in the lab to access the
lab equipment. Though some of the students may need to create/use the testbed in the lab.
2. These  graduate students are paid stipend/tuition through the grants, so there is some kind of accountability.
3. Also it is currently difficult in my institution to get the lab space. So, if the students are not in the lab all the time, there is a possibility of me losing the lab space.


Please advise what is the best way to handle this.

[research_prof]

I have REQUIRED the students in my group to wear masks whenever they are around me (1-1 meetings, group meetings, etc.). I know they do not wear masks in the lab when I am not around, but that's too bad for them.

I personally do not ask my students to work certain hours and I do not require them to be in the lab all day or every day. They can work from wherever they like and whenever they like, but most of them come to the lab anyway to socialize to some extent. I need to trust them they will do the right thing and there is no easy way to police that. I evaluate them based on progress. If there is no progress, we have a problem. If there is enough progress, no questions asked on my end.

[mamselle]

I agree, it's not the time you need to organize, it's the masking/PPE stuff.

It's fairly standard to request everyone in a lab to wear a mask for all kinds of contagion-avoiding reasons.

When I worked as an EA at a few pharmas, anytime I needed to go ask a lab manager about an equipment order I was processing, I had to suit up, put on the mask, gloves, and booties, and go in after they buzzed the door.

Ten minutes later, I was done and gone, but I still had to be in protective garb for the time I was there.

If people who plan to work in a lab can't deal with masking and/or other protocols, they need to get a life, job, and education elsewhere.

Good grief!!

M.

[Ruralguy]

Yup, if a graduate student in the sciences can't live with the changing situations regarding masking, well, they can go do something else.

[fizzycist]

We have been told by our upper admin that individual faculty/units are not allowed to require anyone to wear masks.

It's funny bc our uni had no problem enforcing all kinds of mandates for arbitrary reasons and timeframes and firing ppl who didn't comply. (I am not an anti-vax weirdo, just dislike hypocrisy)

Personally, I think it is important for researchers in my group to interact in person. I don't think mandatory staggering of working hours works well for productivity or mental well-being and it has very minimal impact on covid safety anyway. If my researchers naturally stagger due to their preferred work schedules or because it maximizes productivity on a running expt or something, then no problem.

[clean]

In my (3rd world) state, we are not permitted to require anyone to wear a mask.  Everyone has the freedom to infect and be infected by as many people as they can get close to! 

I wore a mask until Spring Break.  Then the numbers were sufficiently low that I wore a mask in the building, but when I started teaching, i took it off.  If students came close to me, though, I put it back on.  By the end of the term, I think only 2 students wore a mask every class. Never more than 1/4 of the class ever wore a mask.   

[Caracal]

I personally do not ask my students to work certain hours and I do not require them to be in the lab all day or every day. They can work from wherever they like and whenever they like, but most of them come to the lab anyway to socialize to some extent. I need to trust them they will do the right thing and there is no easy way to police that. I evaluate them based on progress. If there is no progress, we have a problem. If there is enough progress, no questions asked on my end.

Yeah, I agree. That's a pretty basic understanding within academia. You have certain responsibilities, but after that, you get to set your own schedule. I know in some sciences, things can be different, but in those cases, its about the work. Nobody needs to be there at 11 on Thursday because its 11 on Thursday. I'd argue that schedules that aren't necessary are poor professional training. Figuring out how to get work done without someone monitoring you is a key skill students need to develop in grad school.

Besides, it's pointless. Just because students are there doesn't mean they are getting work done-which is fine if they are getting the work done at other times. I know its a stereotype, but the coders I actually know, do often work at weird times..

[mamselle]

It seems to come back to a theme that the OP has brought up before, apparently (to my sense of it) tied to a belief  that by policing externals like time, issues that actually pivot around some other essential element can be controlled and brought up to meet some expected, more complex standard.

There might be a cultural component to this belief,  or some conditioned response, like, "This is what I can control, so by controlling it, I can send the message that "meeting unrelated standards" in "other unrelated thing" are important and must be adhered to.

A bit like one kindergarten teacher I worked with who believed that getting everyone seated in a circle at their desks would end their wiggliness, when the real issue was that it was raining, and she wouldn't permit "indoor recess," instead.

M.

[Caracal]

It seems to come back to a theme that the OP has brought up before, apparently (to my sense of it) tied to a belief  that by policing externals like time, issues that actually pivot around some other essential element can be controlled and brought up to meet some expected, more complex standard.



M.

Which is just bad management. Whether you're managing employees at a grocery store or grad students, you shouldn't be making up arbitrary rules that aren't necessary. What matters is that people get the work done. Why should you care whether they do it in the middle of the night, or while they lie in bed? It really doesn't even matter how much time they put into the work.

If they aren't doing the work, it might be appropriate to discuss some of this stuff with them, but only in the context of trying to help them figure out how to improve and stay in the program.

[Ruralguy]

Many times, at least for undergrads, the issues *is* that they simply haven't put enough time into trying anything, whether that be a lab set up , or talking to the advising professor, or analysis or library research. So, sometimes you have to manage *time* because then you can use that time to at least do some of those things with those students. For a student who is succeeding, I have pretty much never asked ,"Did you do that while standing on your head for 30 minutes?" because if the answer would be "yes" then I still wouldn't care. He/she did the work and did it well, so why would I care how they did it (I care about *methodology*, but not how they managed, in detail, all of the methodology)?

[fizzycist]

Often, in my experience, faculty who try to enforce specific working hours on their research staff are doing it as a pre-emptive in response to situations they've experienced that they want to avoid.

Obviously if someone is doing great work then they should be able to do it whenever. But the majority of grad students in my dept (especially early on) get lost, lose motivation easily, and stop showing up unless the PI enforces some expectations.

In my field, it's impossible to make expectations based on results--it is entirely normal for a month to go by with no results and that is no indication of lack of solid work. Some would like for the PI to sit down with every researcher every week and come up with detailed plans and decision trees for what to do and then have daily check-ins to modify on the fly. But that is really time consuming, lends itself to micromanaging, and doesn't scale well for folks with larger groups.

I think OP has had some difficult situations with student productivity, so I don't really blame them for trying to enforce a regular working schedule. I just don't think it works well and can lead to frustration on both sides.