Permanent remote work as a result of the pandemic, wasn’t a feasible option for many companies, in the long run. Hence, most of the companies adapted to the smart route of hybrid working to keep the best employees from walking out of the door.

Defining The hybrid Work Model:
The hybrid work model is a combination of a mix of in-office and offsite working. The right balance of the model can lead to a happy and healthy working environment in companies. The hybrid work model offers more flexibility, allowing employees to split their time between working in the office and remotely at their place of choice. For instance, employees can work three days a week from the office and three days from home or their preferred location.

Role of upskilling and reskilling in a hybrid work model:
A hybrid model offers work-life balance, convenience and more importantly flexibility. However, that’s just not enough to survive and thrive in the competitive business world.

Companies are providing continuous learning & development opportunities to the employees, to amplify their performance, while working in a hybrid model and surpass the competitors.
Great employee performance/service can lead to more & more loyal customers and positively contribute to the company’s revenue growth and hence ROI. Hence it is crucial and vital to strengthen the hybrid workforce capabilities by providing timely upskilling and reskilling to capitalize on every opportunity that comes their way and adapt to the changing ways of interaction with the customers to meet the business requirements.

With digital adoption and acceleration and also with the digital evolution in various industries, the skill gaps have broadened, due to evolving necessities and hence the requirements and hence Skills are changing at a very fast pace. The hybrid workforce, hence is also encountering unparalleled challenges due to the lack of evolving trending skills.

An evolving and continuous skill development culture meeting to the advances in the technological front is crucial to prepare the hybrid workforce to become future-ready for confidently responding to the ever changing business environments.

Real-time skilling will help expand the skill set and make the hybrid workforce more agile to address the innumerable challenges on a day-to-day basis with ease. Skill development is a continuous process and hence the training needs to be planned and structured by the L&D department, to manage it successfully.

Challenges of Training in Hybrid work model:
Training a hybrid workforce is definitely challenging, with the employees physically present for some days in the office and virtually connected for the rest of the week at their desired locations.

The following might be possible hurdles:
a) Lack of consistency in learning requirements and experience:
In a hybrid work model, employees work from different locations and hence need a varied set of skills like digital skills, communication skills, relationship management skills, etc. to manage their work and perform better matching to the changing learning requirements landscape. The learning delivery mode needs to change and evolve continuously as the employees toggle between virtual and physical work environments.

The learning platform:
⦁ in addition to being consistent for one employee working from different locations suiting to the hybrid work model
⦁ also should inculcate the learning experience to be consistent for multiple employees located in different regions
⦁ and must be made accessible simultaneously.

A lack of a consistent learning experience results in a poor adoption rate which further leads to shortage in skills leading to unsatisfactory performance. Hence it is important to understand the learning needs, draw specific learning paths of the employees and have a learning platform that provides a content experience regardless of whether the employees work from home or from the office.

b) Lack of employee engagement:
Ensuring employee engagement during training and development programs has always been challenging, and adding a hybrid work model makes it much tougher. Unfortunately, most L&D teams are still clinging to outdated training methods that fail to engage, encourage their employees. Traditional training methodology does not fit into the modern hybrid learning space. L&D needs to evolve to rethink their existing training strategies and content delivery approach to drive more engagement, quick adoption in bringing success to the learning programs.

c) Lack of insight into learning progress:
Most L&D teams are unable to answer the following questions as they do not have visibility into the learning metrics:

⦁ How to ensure that employees are learning while they are working remotely?
⦁ How do L&D teams ensure constant skill progress for employees working remote & in-office?

Most of the trainers/L&D professionals haven’t trained a hybrid workforce before as several companies are embracing the hybrid culture for the first time. Hence it is vital to draft learning paths after having a proper understanding of employees’, their current skills and mapping them to the expected skill levels.

Measuring the effectiveness of L&D programs and monitoring the learning progress of employees is essential to take real-time actions, in upskilling and reskilling the existing frontline workforce.

Role of On-the-Job Training in a Hybrid Workplace:
On Training aspects, all the employees should be on the same page and speak the same language while communicating with their respective clients. Hence every employee should be updated with the same pieces of information and receive training to develop the most relevant skills at all times, henceforth, which is only made possible by having a unified learning/training platform where information, learning and skills are passed on to the employees continuously, in the flow of work.

Furthermore, with the evolving current technological advances, customers expect on-demand service. To meet customer expectations, employees need training at the moment of need and thereafter too. Hence, blending on-the-job training with hybrid working is the need of the hour than ever before as there is a demanding rise in the hybrid working model and hence its adoption. Moreover, advocating the 70:20:10 model can further assist to amplify the hybrid on-the-job training.
⦁ 70% of employees’ learning happens through on-the-job experience: Learning is often self-directed and experiential. Hence, whether the employees are working from home or from the office, with on-the-job training using the right learning platform, employees will have access to learning resources at all times so that they can learn and get hands-on experience by practicing what they’ve learned. Employees can explore the areas of their interest and sharpen their skill set to keep pace with the evolving market trends.
⦁ 20% through interaction with Co-Workers: While in the office, Employees can interact with their colleagues and observe the best performer to understand how they tackle difficult and troublesome situations. While working from home or at a desired location, employees can collaborate through social platforms and learn from each other via sharing knowledge and learning from each other.
⦁ 10% from Formal Training: 10% is structured on-the-job training where a learning pathway is defined by the L&D professional or trainer, and the employees are bound to follow the learning/training plan. The best part of using a learning platform for on-the-job training is that learning never stops regardless of where the hybrid workforce is, whether at office or at home. Employees can enroll in courses at work or at home to hone their skills, undergo training programs to deliver quality work and better performance.

Conclusion:
It is very important to offer employees the flexibility to pursue the best learning paths suitable for them, in order for the employees to be successful and also the organization.

An LXP can be a definitive helping hand in providing impactful personalized learning experiences.

Such a combination could keep up the Frontline workforce up-to-date through micro-learning content merged with AI content recommendations along with an advanced data analytics platform to showcase the outcomes for better learning/training outcomes and learning/training experiences.

For upskilling Your Frontline workforce, mPowerO provides continuous support and is an end-to-end offering to Online Learning Platforms/Solutions, Digital Publishing Solutions, Upskilling/ReSkilling and Skilling training opportunities for medium to large companies.

mPowerO has evolved from being an Online Learning Solution (LMS) to serving as LXP in order to accommodate larger targeted audiences for educational/publishing and skilling requirements of various medium to large organizations/enterprises.

Talk to our expert team members for a deeper understanding and more related information.

Reach out via email at info@mpowero.com or visit us at https://www.mpowero.com/ for more information.

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