Your employees are back in the office, how is your skills strategy stacking up?

The RTO trend has continued in Q4, with Amazon, JPMorgan, and Salesforce among the latest companies requiring in-office work for the majority of the work week. Many employers cite productivity, collaboration, performance monitoring, camaraderie, and more as key reasons for these policies. Meanwhile, remote-first companies (who make headlines far less often) are continuing their policies to hire more broadly and attract a wider talent pool, but they may still struggle to find the right skilled workers.

Whether or not a company requires in-office work 5x a week or allows for 100% remote work, leadership concerned with business results or a talent shortage should be shifting priorities to focus on skills training that is conducive to their chosen environment.

Achievers Workforce Institute’s (AWI) report titled, ‘The New Skills Gap: Building tomorrow’s workforce today,’ explores if organizations are effectively bridging the skills gap to drive strategic business results. The survey of 3,800 employees and 1,400 HR leaders reveals that many HR leaders are confident in their soft skills training and internal mobility programs, but employees feel differently, signaling that companies must rethink their approach to skills development and validation. The key to success? Establish an approach to skills training aligned to your workplace model – whether remote, hybrid, or on-site.

To understand why it’s critical companies get more intentional with their skills strategies, let’s look at the different work models and how their skills strategies are stacking up.

Remote-by-design fares well

Employees who work from home 100% of the time, with their role designed to be remote, are most likely to say their company is great at training employees. In fact, they’re almost twice as likely as average to say they get effective soft skills training for qualities like teamwork, time management, and critical thinking. Additionally, remote workers are more likely than average to have received training in a range of skills, beyond just soft skills, from coaching and growth mindset to stress management and giving and receiving feedback.

In 2020, companies were required to create workplace flexibility and find new ways to equip employees with engagement opportunities and skills training. These strategies have been carried over into the current day, equipping remote employees with soft and hard skills development via virtual training. These virtual trainings are working well because they are intentionally built for a remote employee population, eliminating the chance that anyone who opts for in-office work misses out on the hands-on guidance they crave.

On the other hand, remote-by-choice employees aren’t doing as well as office-less remote workers. Remote-by-choice employees are half as likely as average to say they get effective soft skills training. This points to the fact that organizations may have reverted to pre-2020 models and run trainings in the office or at reoccurring company offsites. Therefore, in choosing to go remote, remote employees miss out on these trainings. To close this gap, companies that offer in-office and remote options should either adopt hybrid trainings designed to meet the needs of all employees or rethink their RTO policies and require in-office trainings.

Related: Remote work roles dropped 25% since 2021, employees pushing RTO mandates

 Back to the office, back to effective training

Companies who believe in-office work suits their workplace population the best, though they could technically work from home, receive solid marks on their skills strategies. Employees with mandated RTO are 50% more likely than average to say they get effective soft skills training. They are also more likely to have time for training and to have received specific training in soft skills, such as receiving feedback or building relationships.HR leaders are returning to tried-and-true training and development methods now that employees are returning to the office, similar to those utilized prior to 2020. While there are pros and cons of older methods of training, from an employee experience perspective, it is proving to be effective for in-office employees.

Cultivating connections and bonds is a huge benefit that RTO brings, as it further drives collaboration and innovation. Most importantly, it gives employees the ability to learn in-person and hands-on, getting guidance in real time from the best in the business. This is especially advantageous to junior staffers and entry-level employees who are brand new to the working world. For employees that push back on RTO policies, employers can work to implement perks and logistics such as designated days in office for work populations that need hands-on training, but also allowing they work from home days regularly for solitary, deeper work time.

Essential workers are still looking for essential skills

Lastly, there is a large sect of workers whose jobs can only be done on site, primarily from frontline and offline industries such as healthcare, retail, manufacturing, and construction. It’s ironic because many of these employees are considered essential workers who are vital to a running economy. However, employers are not treating them as such, and they’re not getting the training and support they need.

According to the AWI report, on-site workers are the least likely to say their company gives them time to improve their skills and are 37% less likely than other workers to say their company has an excellent internal mobility program. This lack of investment not only undermines employees’ potential but also hinders the overall growth and resilience of the industries they support. In today’s working world, employee environments aren’t one and the same, so it’s time that organizations stopped treating them that way. By adapting training and development opportunities to be conducive to specific work environments, employees can get the most out of the comprehensive skills training that they’re investing their time in. To impact their businesses’ bottom line, companies, in turn, will better equip their teams—on-site, hybrid, and remote—to thrive in today’s evolving workplace landscape.

David Bator leads Achievers Workforce Institute, a strategic practice whose focus on Research, Community and Advisory empowers global executives with tactical, practical approaches to changing how the world works. David is passionate about people and has spent the last 20 years working closely with HR, IT and Communications leaders to build programs that position individuals, teams and companies to grow.