'Placemaking is not simply physical: it is down to human attitudes, actions, and communication': Lois describes how an online placement can be just as rewarding as face to face working
Creating ‘place’ when working from home
Lois describes how an online placement can be just as rewarding as face to face working
I was incredibly lucky to be taken on as an intern at Cinema for All this summer. Cinema for All describes its main role as “helping communities across the country to develop and sustain the type of film screenings they want”. As a lover of all things film, I immediately knew this was the internship I wanted to work on. I was ecstatic when I found out I got a place working for a company that centres itself around the idea that the universal love of film helps build communities, although, naturally, the daily workings of the workplace were a mystery to me.
From my first introductory video call to my first time in the office, what immediately struck me about the team was their ability to make me feel comfortable, despite any subconscious anxieties I may have had about working in a completely new and unfamiliar environment. This is made even more perplexing when you consider the fact that I hardly met my colleagues in person – never mind with everyone in the same room. My role was hybrid, meaning I worked online from my kitchen table two days a week, then in the office in Sheffield one day a week.
This got me thinking: how do workplaces flourish in the age of ‘working hybrid’ or ‘working from home’? Or more importantly, how do colleagues create their own community when rarely meeting in person? I make this distinction because I personally think that the success of a workplace is often down to the ‘place’ the colleagues create, to allow them to complete tasks and solve problems together. Therefore, working in a team is its own unique form of placemaking.
I have been lucky enough to practice this over the summer. Alongside two other TAP interns, I was given the project of creating a survey to better understand the variety of equipment the Cinema For All members had; these members were community cinemas, film clubs, and societies from all across the UK. After many online meetings full of planning and drafting, we created a survey that successfully reached enough members to provide us with a perfect response rate.
My time here has proven that a physical place is not a necessary requirement to create one’s metaphorical place: we worked as a team while scattered across Sheffield and still reached Cinema for All members across all corners of the UK. Hence I would define placemaking as the practice of creating places (or transforming public spaces we are already granted with) that strengthen connections between people. I believe that by strengthening connections within communities, everyone’s individual ideas and assets are collated into a stronger and more effective team.
This could define the community cinemas we reached out to, or the place we worked from. In the context of the workplace, I found that the pre-existing team had created a place that welcomed outsiders and empowered them. Knowledge exchange was encouraged and appreciated, making both group and individual tasks more rewarding. I would now view knowledge exchange as an essential part of the work environment. When us interns were given the freedom to express our personal perspectives on how this project could be carried out, it allowed our ideas to flourish.
I think that by having this accommodating outlook, we felt as though we were a part of this team; we had effectively integrated ourselves into their ‘place’ immediately upon arrival. This allowed us to work more effectively as a team ourselves, and when liaising with co-workers. Ultimately, I think this shows that it is predominantly attitude and feeling that create an effective working environment.
And all of this was achieved without even needing to meet in person. By allowing conversation to flow on online servers, without having to constantly abide by the traditional formality of email, I felt I knew my co-workers as I would if we had chatted side-by-side in the office. Online meetings also allowed our team of interns to get to know each other in a more professional sense – our strengths and our assets. Although I did attend the office for around four of my total working days, I found that my time away from the office was just as valuable.
Thus, I think our project’s success proves that placemaking is not simply physical: it is down to human attitudes, actions, and communications. Creating a place is more than possible in the world of hybrid work.
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