Firms embracing hybrid working, but must ensure teams have the modern skills to stay productive

Employers must act now to ensure staff have the modern skills to stay productive during hybrid working, says Questionmark. While firms are continuing to let staff work remotely for at least some of the week, most employees have noticed dips in their productivity.

Hybrid working, with staff splitting their week between home and the office, looks set to form the future of work. Almost 40% of workers would consider quitting if their employer won’t allow some level of working from home, according to surveys.

But new working arrangements are not without their challenges. 54% of employees report up to six instances of lost productivity due to network access issues according to research by Entrust. Leaders cite home internet security and the leakage of sensitive company data as among their top challenges.

Five crucial questions as firms embrace hybrid working

As employers move toward hybrid working arrangements, leaders should ask five crucial questions:

• Do teams know how to stay safe? Human error contributes to 95% of cyber breaches.
• Can teams collaborate digitally? Workers report that they spend, on average, 45 minutes a day searching for information between different systems.
• Are workers communicating effectively? With some in offices and others at home, hybrid working creates new challenges.
• Are staff making the best use of new data? As we work more digitally, we generate more data. But this data can only be used to drive efficiency if workers know how to use and understand it properly.
• Can workers think critically? New ways of working create new challenges. Employers need teams who can get out of their silos, break down a problem into its component parts and come up with a workable solution.

John Kleeman, Founder of Questionmark, said: “Regular online assessments give employers real and reliable information on the strength of modern skills across the workforce. This will enable them to answer these five questions. With reliable data on staff skills they can anticipate problems, strengthen training and better support staff as they transition.”