Upskilling, Work From Home, the two key aspects today

The coronavirus pandemic has totally disturbed the business operations and working patterns and the WFH culture is now seen as the new norm for carrying out business.

It has also been found that employees are more effective while working at home and the employee's physical location does not define or matter for productivity. Gallup's study shows that the remote workers are slightly more engaged (32 per cent) than office centric workers (28 per cent). Businesses are adopting new ways of working and inducing more and more flexibility in their company's work culture.

As per the recent study, employees working from home found to be working 1.4 more days per month than their office-based counterparts, putting in three appended weeks of work each year. Big league companies like Alphabet Inc's Google and Facebook Inc have allowed their maximum employees to work from home until the end of 2020.

It has been found that 53 per cent of workers who are working from home are less likely to take time off than they would if they worked at the office counterparts.None of us have ever thought that these sorts of circumstances will come up but companies are now ready to embrace the new reality and are fully prepared to evolve. Remote flexible working has a beneficial effect on productivity, 74 per cent of global market leaders reported.

On the other hand, upskilling seems to be a buzz word in the world right now. The sudden shift has largely affected the productivity of companies. But people now have enough time for themselves in their hands. A large amount of time is saved in socialising, running errands, and commuting which adds up leisure hours every single day. Powerful reasons why upskilling and work from home are the major key aspects in the corona era are-

Business future- proof

To thrive and sustain in this Covid era, one should be early adopters and thinkers. As the situation becomes worse, the economy is facing a massive downfall and it will take a long time for the economy to bounce back.

To safeguard your company from the ongoing and upcoming market disruptions, letting your employees work from home and upskilling is the first major step. Once you are done building a workforce of tech-forward, knowledgeable, and agile employees, you will master the art of dealing with the challenges of the business world in the future. This is a golden chance where you can explore the skills in which your employees lack and manage the skill gap.

Boosted productivity

Work from home is here to stay. But here's the question - will the style of work remain the same as of the traditional office? No. To accommodate traditional work patterns in the digital era, it is very essential to upskill employees from all gens. One of the significant skills today is being digital competent, and currently, a small fraction of employees are digitally native. As per the recent studies, it has been found that around 56 per cent of employers feel that the major reason causing the inability to effectively innovate is the skills shortage.

The earlier individuals begin bridging the void, the greater the productivity of the current distributed work positions would be. Another important thing to note here is that the digital world's rate of evolution is very higher. It is a journey of continuous learning that companies need to prepare themselves to embark upon.

Lower hiring costs and cross-function teams

The world of work is taking an unexpected turn. Companies and businesses are anticipating a huge shift towards working from home. To survive, employers understand that employees must equip themselves with the right and top-notch skills. With enough upskilling, your employees will be agile and knowledgeable and will be able to meet the company's needs. This in turn will lower and freeze the hiring process. Upskilling will help workers grasp the organisation's different work positions easier. This should continue to have good cross-functional workplace teams.

( The author is the founder of EmpMonitor)