So, I was curious to know why, suddenly every other edtech giants are going through a "cost cutting" phase. Why is this layoff being a hot topic in the industry? What happened? Why this urge to prioritize cost cutting; especially not caring about employee retention?The industry got extremely lucky in 2020-2021. They started to boom on a massive scale and when people realized its potential, more and more players joined the "easy" gamble. The market got saturated in no time. Now, whenever the entry barrier of an industry decreases, a sudden flooding of startups happen. 

In 2022, the rapid boom got a hit when schools reopened and students were no longer glued to their screens 24/7. They went back to their routine life where after a 6 hour school, they take private tuitions or coaching for another 6 hours. They get drained out. Are in need of an escape. Usually, phones and digital platforms are the main media here. They scroll through social media, share a few relatable memes, go to sleep and this cycle turns into a circadian habit. So, naturally you cannot expect them to install an educational app to take another 3 hours of coaching from a digital tutor. What happens here is, this increases the customer acquisition cost for edtechs. Where, the customers are not able to get interested in interesting stuffs anymore. So, no matter how good a course is, catching eyes and getting into people’s bucket list is being harder than ever for the education companies. As a result, companies are forced to spend more into customer acquisition and conversion. And to save cost, they are going nuts with employee lay offs and food and coffee expenses. 

But, can aggressive cost cutting actually save the companies? Although it can, it's not sustainable. 

The solution here, in my opinion is to understand those circadian habits of your audience. You need to find out what interests them and who interests them. Right now, aggressive marketing with digital ads are just trying to feed 5 star food to un-hungry people. It's sort of unsustainable and uncertain. Digital marketing has reached its peak and social media will be saturated with similar/ competitive ads within this year. So, if you don't build personal (human led) brands, understanding and empathizing with human behaviour, you will be out of time in no time. 

The cost of acquisition and conversion will keep increasing as the market will keep getting saturated with freebies and offline coachings will always be the front runners. You won't be able to convince people to buy something unless he/she is a firm believer of your brand. To do so, again, build trust, build persona, build powerful word of mouth. Prioritize human emotions, study human behaviour and then decide where to allocate your expenses and where to cut the costs.

Why Cost Cutting Isn't Sustainable in Ed-techs

Colors have a powerful effect on our emotions, they can be intelligently used in content making to convey a specific message to an audience and shape a brand’s perception. Colors used in videos can leave a long time effect on the minds of students of the course content. The correct color scheme is essential for creating the course identity while keeping the health issue into account.The color scheme sets the tone and enhances the individuality of the courses. If we only had 100 color choices, choosing a palette might not be a problem. But we have access to millions of colors, which makes the possible choices overwhelming. Out of this seemingly infinite range of colors, how can you possibly narrow down the list and decide which ones to use? 


Blue is a symbol of stability, calmness, reliability, and purity. It is associated with a sense of serenity, reminiscent of the sea and sky. 

How does blue affect a person? It affects emotions: balances, controls, soothes. The most versatile color that suits almost everyone. Blue has many shades, from turquoise to indigo, and each of them can be perceived differently. This color is often used in logos of large companies and corporations, making its connection with business very strong. Recall, for example, the logos of international Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter.

Blue also has a downside, a sad side – sometimes it is associated with feelings of depression. Throughout art history, various artists have used it, most notably by Picasso, to express dark and negative sentiments in their work. For it soothes the eyes of a student, blue is often the go-to color for e-learning professionals who are looking for a way to transform a complex subject into one that is easily absorbed, given that it helps to make the subject matter seem less confusing and complicated.

Green is the color of nature, life, and freshness. It is often used as a symbol for ecology and sustainability in color psychology, which makes it popular with food brands. In addition, green is associated with money and is suitable for finance. For example, Spotify’s use of a vibrant shade of green suggests that the company is full of drive and vitality and energized. They do not care about soothing the customers' minds. They care about the vibracy. The energy. The upbeats. In e-learning, green can be used as a color that energizes the student's mind. It has the ability to make a boring topic interesting; due to the instant energy the brain drives while seeing green. 

Black has many different meanings. On the one hand, this is a timeless classic. It is associated with austerity, elegance, sophistication, wealth, strength, and mystery. At the same time, black is associated with anger, loneliness, envy, and mourning. It is noteworthy that black has a mourning connotation in Western culture, while it is the color of joy in Japan. Black is the most used colour in text books and our eyes are habituated to see black letters. As a result, our brain get less excited while seeing black in the text, which makes a reading or learning session generalistic and usual. 

Warm, energetic, inviting, optimistic, intellect, cheerful – yellow is great for attracting attention. The yellow color is instantly registered and processed by the brain, stimulating its functioning and the nervous system. That is why it is used for warning signs, reflective vests, and emergency
vehicles. In nature, it is used for the same purposes – the wasp warns of danger with its yellow-black body and the poisonous frog with yellow stripes. It can also help to boost memory and stimulate mental function. If you're trying to increase knowledge retention or make a potentially dull subject more exciting, opt for yellow. 

A vibrant color that calls for action. It is associated with passion and love, but at the same time, it creates an atmosphere of danger, anger, violence, and war. Red attracts attention, excites the nervous system, and brings you out of a calm state. That is why it is used for warning road signs and fire engines. If you want to guide the learners’ attention to important information or want to boost their motivation, then we may want to go with red. This color can also be ideal for situations that call for immediacy. For example, if you want learners to ponder a particular topic or direct them to a specific section of the eLearning course or module at that very moment, using red can bring about a sense of urgency.

E-learning depends a lot on the color you choose as the core component and USP of the material is to be fast grasping. Attracting through colors is the key when it comes to digital products. And that's why, knowing color psychology is that much important in this arena. 

Using Color Psychology in E-learning

The origin of an HR initiative goes back to the 1920s, where the goal was to ensure the “welfare of factory workers”. While the ultimate destination of any HR initiative is to align the company’s and the employees’ satisfaction, HRMs are expected to be the one who gives feedback. Now, there’re many feedback methods and I am not an HR expert to discuss those well. But from an employee perspective, I want to share my expectations from an HR manager.

Managing people is definitely one of the toughest jobs in today’s business world. While some employees are burning out themselves for the company, others love exploring challenges. The HR manager, however, has to deal with all sorts of employees. S/He needs to observe it all. Behaviours, organizational skills, satisfaction level, efficiency etc. This requires the skill of listening and observing carefully. An HR manager needs to be careful. I have come across HR managers who only listen to the people with good designation. No, you can not do it. You can not categorize your employees based on their designations. You need to treat everyone as a “human resource” of the company who is contributing in the business. So, you have to listen, you have to observe, you have to be careful. In short, you have to care; equally.

Employees do not want a reward structure tbvh. Yes, rewards are exciting, it can motivate you (to take challenges or to burn out for the company even more); but its not sustainable. Look back to the performer of the year. He was happy when you handed him the crest of recognition. Next year, he is unhappy too. He’s unsatisfied. Rather, recognize your employees’ hardwork with a smile, with a sentence of appreciation; everytime you feel s/he is contributing. Motivate them through kind words, ask them if they had to push their limits to achieve a milestone, empathize them. Do not hand over “certificate of recognition” for pushing their limits to achieve milestones. Talk, talk and talk. Kindly.

Good HR managers have certain level of communication skill. Communicate clearly, without being aggressive. That’s the hard part of a system, where you prioritize money over men. Often, the company’s money is at stake and the HR manager need to showcause/fire/”have a talk” with certain employees. What should be the priority to an HR manager? Money, or men? The title speaks for itself. An HR manager is supposed to manage human resources, not monetary resources. That’s the responsibility of a finance manager. An HR manager must be an empath. Even while firing, s/he has to think about how the employee’s brain will process the act and speak accordingly.

Negotiation is another act where I have found HR managers being aggressively rude. S/he has to align both the company’s and the employee’s expectations. Again, listening and empathy are the keys here. You have to listen to why the employee is expecting what s/he is expecting. “We are giving you an opportunity, so you have to accept the amount we offer or else we wn’t give you the promotion.”, is not how you empathize with your employee. I went through a recruitment process, successfully proved my worth in several interviews, gave a competative exam, sat for a viva and you are trying to tell me I don’t deserve the “opportunity” you’re providing? Don’t make the other person feel invaluable, don’t make zir feel low. You can negotiate as much as you want, just be kind as people are expected to be; even the normal regular life people. Communicate, why you can’t offer more, in an uplifting manner.

In my country, employees crave for a good HR manager. Who will listen, who will care, who will protect and be fair. Performance feedback is important. But there are bad feedback too. Dear HR managers, practice giving out the good to the world, to your employees, to the human resource you are responsible for. Don’t just evaluate your employee. You need evaluation too. Don;t just put on training materials to your employee’s workload. you need to train yourself too. Don’t just give feedback on the performance of the employees. you need performance feedback too.

HR Managers Need Performance Feedback Too.

Does the virus see a gender? The answer is NO. Then why does it seem the way that COVID-19 is impacting people of a specific gender in a specific way?

The crisis started in December, 2019 and have caused havoc in personal, familial and social life of millions of people trapped within it. This “trap”, for some people was being able to relive a good time with families and friends and self-healing activities while for others, this turned into a literal trap. I am referring to the women who fell victim of gender-based violence where COVID-19 lockdown played a vital role. Based on how significantly it is affecting a gender, this has been named as a shadow pandemic.

According to UN women, The term “shadow pandemic” has been used to refer the maltreatment of women as it is increasing in proportion with the increase in COVID-19 cases which imply lockdown jurisdiction, making the form of abuse easier for the abuser.

almost 1 in 2 women reported that they or a woman they know experienced a form of violence since the COVID-19 pandemic.

1 in 4 women are feeling less safe at home while existing conflict has increased within households since the pandemic started.

3 in 5 women also think that sexual harassment in public spaces has gotten worse during COVID-19.

They were hurt by other family members (21%) or that other women in the household were being hurt by the family members (19%).

UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has predicted that the rate of gender-based violence will increase and at least 15 million cases of domestic violence around the world will take place for every 3 months that the lockdown is extended.

Intuitively, there is little doubt that in stressful times like COVID-19 pandemic, being confined indoors without access to peer groups, family and other support systems, the increased risk must raise concerns and be tackled strategically. ‘A pandemic within a pandemic’, shows how even if we find the cure and vaccine for COVID-19, the latter remains unaddressed to the extent it should be. Even though the United Nations created a Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women (United Nations, 1993) recognizing violence against women and suggested actions, this was non-visionary in terms of a crisis situation like COVID-19 pandemic. So it is obvious, why there is a massive gap in addressing the pandemic within the pandemic in order to introduce government policy and ensure its implementation.

The term “shadow pandemic” has been used to refer this ever-growing maltreatment of women as it is increasing in proportion with the increase in COVID-19 cases which imply lockdown jurisdiction, making the form of abuse easier for the abuser. To answer the whys behind this phenomenon, this paper seeks to assess the increased vulnerabilities of violence against women in both online and offline modalities while explaining COVID-19 as a shadow pandemic.

Feminists argue that domestic violence is a result of gender inequalities of patriarchal societies and is used as a weapon to showcase masculine powers. In such societies, men sustain their privilege to enforce their sexual rights through use of violence, including rape. Feminist theory also relates rape to gender based preconceived attitudes. This perspective shows how gender norms facilitate sexual violence against women. “Men are supposed to be aggressive, dominant and women are born to serve men’s sexual needs” - views like these are the major reasons behind why rape is still a debated issue when it comes to criminological analysis.

Another theory that exposes social exploitation of women is the cultural spill over theory. According to the theory, there must be other cultural elements that facilitates the legitimization of the heinous act from society’s view. Such as validated portrayal of men who abuse women in media, objectifying women, social judgement etc.

Social disorganization theory shows how geographical mobility for any reason or any crisis (including pandemic) is also associated with gender violence. Researchers predict that social disorganization increases cultural support for violence against women. Patterns of this disorganization contributes to the normative support for violence.

3 points on the whys behind this vulnerability can been revealed which I divide as outdoor vulnerability, indoor vulnerability and online vulnerability of young women due to the pandemic.

Since the roads are being less crowded during lockdown and social distancing, women do not feel safe while being alone, particularly after evening, as according to them, they feel there is scope of sexual violence. Like sexual harassment, domestic violence is another extremely common form of gender-based violence in Bangladesh. In a patriarchal society like in Bangladesh, women are seen as a domestic homemaker who has the liability of fulfilling the family members’ expectations. Women who fail to do that, often fall victim of domestic violence by either the husband or the in-laws which ranges from physical torture such as marital rape to even murder in many cases. The reason behind this increased domestic torture is, the wives are spending more time with the perpetrators than before which is allowing them to malpractice their patriarchal ideologies on a bigger space. Beside housewives, violence against girls is seen in many other social relationships. Such as, parents abusing their daughters, girls being exploited by their relatives, friends and peers etc. since the pandemic has the socially “inferior” gender to be confined with the “superiors.”

COVID-19 has brought humans closer to cyber space like never before. Globalization has allowed people to express themselves on the internet however they want. And this has immensely increased the scope of cyberviolence. According to Council of Europe, Cyberviolence is referred to as online behaviours that are criminally or non-criminally assault, or can lead to assault, of an individual’s physical, psychological or emotional well-being. 2020 was the year of internet usage. As social distancing and lockdowns became the new norms, communicating through cyberspace was done in almost every sector. There is no denying that this helped in making and keeping connections between relations alive, but, as everything comes with a bad side too, we saw the highest amount of cyberviolence in 2020 as well. Sexual objectification, harassment, insults, bullying, trolling etc. were on rampage. And as always, women were the prime target of gender-based violence in cyberspace too. Reasons being the anonymity and increased access to explicit contents on the internet such as pornography. 

Eliminating the pandemic within the pandemic will be a mammoth task to do. Starting with of course, policy reformation. As discussed, Bangladesh does not have any solid legal policy to deal with cyberviolence against women. Although it is advised to call the National Emergency Service, 999 while in need, it does a little to nothing to serve the purpose. Strict laws must be enacted to protect women in cyberspace. Empowering women should be a key to solve gender-based crimes. And by empowering, I do not mean to be educated and self-dependant women; it includes standing against the wrong and the wrong-doer, standing for herself, physically and mentally. Women should be encouraged to take part in policy making. In cases, they must participate to become the center of policy making, playing a pivotal role as policy maker. They must be given the power to ensure that vulnerable women and girls have their concerns and needs identified as fast as possible making sure that suitable interventions are applied; especially when vulnerable girls and women are confined with their abusers due to a pandemic. These organizations must speak up on behalf of vulnerable women. Both men and women must acknowledge the vulnerability of women and girls due to COVID-19.

In Bangladesh, people believe in shared responsibility of gender-based violence, connecting the victim’s demography to why they get abused! In cases of domestic violence, women are viewed as a puppet of the husband who is expected to listen to whatever he commands. His commands are her wish. And if she does not obey, it is the right of the man to verbally, physically or sexually abuse that woman. This is a controversial concern where most feminist disagree to acknowledge shared responsibility of a women, and rightly so. The year, 2020, with COVID-19 has been severely rough in gender-based violence reports in Bangladesh. The alarming prevalence of gender based violence has initiated debate over whether the victims and the survivors had any role in it. Popular beliefs like “ek haate taali baje na”, “shamir payer niche stree er behesht” and “khabare khola rakhle machhi boshbei” circulated throughout the forums of sensationalized headlines of violence against women. Mainstream social media was dominated by this “shared responsibility” debate. Many cases initiated public protest demanding swift justice for victims. Question arises; will capturing and punishing the offender really bring justice to the girl who suffered the physical and mental destruction? Will this eliminate rape from the society? Will men fear “justice system” and stop rape? Will the society acknowledge that there’s no shared responsibility of a victim for what was intended and committed solely by a man? I don’t have any answer to that. But if we study the pattern, we might see there’s little to no use of blaming the victims for an act where they did not contribute at all.

The Shadow Pandemic

As our legislation officially considers rape as an act done by men to women, it is clear that in every reported rape case the criminal is a man. Yet, our society believes in shared responsibility of rape, connecting the victim’s demography to why they get raped! This is a controversial concern where most feminist disagree to acknowledge shared responsibility of a women in rape, and rightly so. The past year, 2021 has been severely rough in rape reports of Bangladesh. More than one thousand cases has been reported and that is only the 50% of all rape incidents that are "reported". The alarming prevalence of rape initiates a debate over whether the victims and the survivors had any role in it. Popular beliefs like “ek haate taali baje na” and “khabare khola rakhle machhi boshbei” circulated throughout the forums of sensationalized rape headlines. Mainstream social media was dominated by this “shared responsibility” debate. Many cases initiated public protests demanding swift justice for rape victims. Question arises; will capturing and punishing the offender really bring justice to the girl who suffered the physical destruction and mental trauma? Will this eliminate rape from the society? Will men fear “justice system” and stop rape? Will the society acknowledge that there’s no shared responsibility of a victim for what was intended and committed solely by a man? I don’t have any answer to those. But if we study the pattern, we might see there’s little to no use of blaming the victims for an act where they did not contribute at all. The focus of rape discussion should rely on assessing offenders; rapists; men.

The year 2020 began with a rape case reported on January whose victim was a Dhaka University student. The case occurred in Khilkhet, Dhaka. After going through several sources, I failed to find any personal information of the offenders as they are referred as “some unknown men” everywhere. This case initiated several protests and hunger strike, yet the offenders are hardly talked about in the mainstream social environment. There have been 164 reported rape only in the first 2 months of 2021. According to the monthly statistical database by Ain o Shalish Kendra, the cases show that everyday 4 women are raped on average in Bangladesh, considering last year’s rape trend. The trend shows some interesting facts. The number of rape incidents is more than double of the number of cases filed against the rapists. Potential reasons include, secondary victimization of the woman, threats and blackmails by the offenders, victim blaming, harassment through mainstream media etc. 

Rape cases were at its peak in October, 2020. On the other hand, October, 2020 was the time when a rape incident in Noakhali got viral which initiated massive outrage. As a result, protest, hungerstrike etc. were taking place. Again, the question is, how is it that the month of protests had the most number of rape at the same time? It’s not only the women who participated in those protests; there were male support and male participation. Then how is it possible that while some men were protesting against rape, some became rapists?

Another incident that shook the social media was the Kalabagan rape case where the offender named Dihan raped a girl and she bled to death. This was a very controversial case as reports say, they were in a relationship and the girl allegedly had consent over this. In another case, a 7 year old girl was raped in Mulghar village, Bishnopur union of Sadar upozila in Bagherhat by 22 year old Enam Sheikh. In this case, we see the use of patriarchal power in several stages. Firstly, the offender’s background reveals on why in the first place, he committed rape. He knew, in an influential and patriarchal setting, he can easily get away with raping a 7 year old minor. In January, 2021, the case of a 5 year old child has being raped by her madrasa teacher saddened the nation.The trend of 2020-2021 shows that sexual assault in madrasas in Bangladesh has become a regularly occurring incident. Reasons being, lack of supervision, lack of crime understanding and again, practice of power and patriarchy. Now let’s discuss a case happening in metropolitan area. A 25 year old student from Banani, Dhaka repeatedly raped after intoxicating the victim and later blackmailed her through their intimate videos. This case is an example of how area demography plays a vital role. In the cases where the demography is rural or semi-urban, the rape occurs by the direct execution of the offenders’ aim. In this case, the offender was dedicated to make sure nobody knows by constantly blackmailing and threatening the victim. So, to understand different ways of modus operandi, assessing age and area demography plays a vital role. Unbalanced gender roles between men and women, notably from the social purpose, have always been revered as a reason behind rape. Laws are created to ensure women’s safety, women's empowerment is acknowledged; very less effort is given on understanding why young males are more dedicated to commit sexual offence; particularly rape. The discourse of rape, as we speak, remains restricted within the role of patriarchy as the major reason. But as the cases show, although patriarchy is not the only reason here; it ignites other factors to collaboratively execute the modus operandi of rape. It's good that we tend to take measures studying the causes behind a crime, but, recognizing the demographic difference within comparable elements helps to understand the vastness of a crime; which can assist us to eradicate crime before the motive starts developing within the criminal.

Is She Responsible for The Rape?

Although it is inappropriate to assume that everyone belonging to a specific generation will have the same beliefs and development features as social beings, it can be said that shared circumstances and experiences among people with a common setting can impact values and experiences of solidarity. Durkheim’s theory of social order explains this transition from one time (that affects the beliefs and lifestyles of members of a generation) to another. Mechanical solidarity results from homogeneity that is derived from some predetermined similarities and common traits. While in contrast, organic solidarity is experienced by the members of a community that is industry-oriented and is based upon the division of labour. The conscience, or the society’s moral code, provides more room for individualism in organic solidarity as absence of social control is a major trait of this transitioned phase, whereas mechanical solidarity depends on a collective absolute authority made for the greater good of the community where the essence of social control is observable. This transitional phase (from mechanical to organic) divides the generations by their choice of life between individualism and collectivism.

Social identity breeds from four things, categorization of youths into being members of groups, the distinctiveness, uniqueness and prestige of the group, the salience of out-group individuals and the factors associated with group formation. If youths realize that they are members of a certain group, then they may define themselves by the values and characteristics generally espoused by the group members. If the beliefs of the group are aligned with social expectations, the individual grows positively and if the beliefs contradict social expectations, deviance occurs where the individual also involves himslef into deviant behaviour. For instance, members of a feminist group believe in gender equality; people who belong to the anti-feminist group do not acknowledge equality which may result in violence against women or violence against men etc. As social identity theory presumes, individuals’ sense of identity exists because of the knowledge of being a part of a larger social group such as when an individual closely defines her or himself by being a member of a generation. Furthermore, the commonness in values, beliefs and identities of members of the groups makes the group’s stance and salience stronger. This might explain the barriers to communication between members of different groups; particularly different generations of millennials and generation Z. Similar to radicalization, millennials fall victim of youth gang crimes and violent extremism more than generation Z as is requires collectivism and relies on collective identity. Individuals attain the sense of self in the social world based on their membership in a social group. In context of subculture theory, deviant subcultures do not construct based on pathological or biological traits, instead they are understood as meaningful attempts to resolve problems faced by the people concerned; e.g. identity crisis, financial crisis etc. Every  human action, including deviance and delinquency, is an ongoing process of problem solving. Such problems breed within the political, cultural, social and economic structures of the mainstream society. Thus, subcultures are formed in an attempt to solve these problems when it can not be done in the conventional way depending on social expectations. Thus, being in a subculture gives an adolescent or a young individual the sense of identity allowing his beliefs to merge with the collective beliefs of other members from the subculture. And millennials are the prime victim of that as they grew up learning the values of collectivism.

Articles

Why Cost Cutting Isn't Sustainable in Ed-tech...

Using Color Psychology in E-learning

HR Managers Need Performance Feedback Too.

The Shadow Pandemic

Is She Responsible for The Rape?

Individualism Vs Collectivism & GenZ Vs Mille...