[Jjinbit] "Low-tenure employees must come to the office"... Remote Work 'New Employee Training' [Office Shift] (26)

Office to Home, Learning Methods Change with Space Shift
"Remote Work Reduces Mentoring Time and Growth-Helpful Feedback"
"Face-to-Face vs Remote, Content Matters More Than Method" Evaluations Also

Editor's Note[Jjinbit] is an abbreviation for 'Jung Hyunjin's Business Trend' as well as 'Real Business Trend', and is a corner that shows changes in the trends of work. 'Office Shift,' a segment within Jjinbit, thoroughly examines the office changes prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic and aims to lay the groundwork for seeking answers to new work formats through experiments we've conducted together. You can find this feature every Saturday and Sunday morning. After 40 installments, it will also be published as a book.

Earlier this month, it drew attention that global consulting firms Deloitte and PwC were conducting retraining for new hires in the UK who joined during the COVID-19 pandemic. The reason for the retraining was that most training took place online at home for employees working remotely due to the pandemic, so new hires failed to properly acquire the skills necessary for their work. It was also evaluated that compared to previous generations, these employees couldn’t learn additional aspects of the job in the office, leading to insufficient hands-on work experience.

The firms diagnosed that employees who spent their university years during COVID-19 faced difficulties with communication and face-to-face activities, such as presenting or expressing opinions in meetings. As a result, they decided to provide retraining focused on presentations and meetings for new hires and to assign managers as dedicated coaches for new employees for two years.

A representative from Deloitte mentioned in an interview with foreign media, "The vast majority of new hires have never experienced a corporate environment and are used to working alone," pointing out that "there is a need for training in basic professional skills and work capabilities that were not previously required."

As remote work became widespread due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the issue of training new employees has surfaced. For young people just starting out in adult life after leaving school, working from home means skipping the process of observing and listening in the field to gain work experience and learn skills. Traditionally, new hires go through a certain period of 'probation or apprenticeship,' but with changes in office spaces, their process of learning and mastering work has also changed significantly.

◆ Wall Street's Concerns Over 'Apprenticeship Culture'... "Come to the Office to Build Your Career"

Wall Street was the most public about the concern that the spread of remote work is making new employee training a major challenge. The 'apprenticeship culture' of getting practical experience by observing and assisting in real work settings before graduation has been Wall Street’s way of cultivating and securing talent. However, remote work has made it difficult to maintain this culture, prompting Wall Street firms to encourage office returns earlier than other industries.

According to Bloomberg and others, James Gorman, CEO of Morgan Stanley, emphasized at an event last year that remote workers should return to the office, describing the office as 'Careerland,' a space to build one's career. He explained that while remote work turns one's home into merely 'Jobland'—a place for tasks—coming to the office allows employees to watch how colleagues work and develop skills that cannot be acquired just by looking at a laptop screen.

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This was the case not only for Morgan Stanley but also for firms such as JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs. Jamie Dimon, Chairman of JPMorgan, has repeatedly said publicly that younger employees need to come to the office for training. He has stated, "Most professionals learn through an apprenticeship model. In a Zoom world, it’s nearly impossible to replicate." Goldman Sachs, where more than 75% of employees are Millennials & Gen Z, also emphasized the importance of office attendance for maintaining apprenticeship culture.

Recently, BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, announced that starting in September, employees would be required to work in the office four days a week. BlackRock’s management explained, "Career development happens when there are teaching moments among team members," stressing that everyone needs to be in the office together for this to occur.

◆ "Mentoring Is Better Face-to-Face" vs. "It's Not the Tool, But the Content That Matters"

So, does remote work negatively impact new employee training? Recently, two research reports relevant to this discussion were published. Three years after the wide adoption of remote work prompted by COVID-19, the findings suggested that, at least from a training perspective, in-person work is more advantageous than remote work.

According to a survey report published last month by nonprofit research group WFH Research, which surveyed about 2,400 U.S. adults in remote-eligible jobs, those who go to the office spend about 40 minutes more per week mentoring others compared to remote workers. Besides mentoring, office workers also spent 25% more time on career development activities than their remote or telecommuting peers. There was also a difference of about 25 minutes a week in time spent on formal education programs.

Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford University professor who leads WFH Research, explained, "Mentoring is easier to do face-to-face," adding, "Although mentoring can be done remotely, it requires a lot more careful effort." For this reason, he described hybrid work, combining remote and in-office days, as having office days focused on mentoring, innovation, and experiencing workplace culture, and home days for highly focused work in a quiet environment.

It has also been pointed out that feedback, which occurs naturally in the process of working, may have a greater impact on new hires working remotely.

Natalia Emanuel, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and others conducted a study on software engineers at a company listed in Fortune’s 500, finding that engineers working in the same building as colleagues received 23% more feedback on computer code than those working in separate buildings. However, after offices closed due to COVID-19, this gap decreased by 17 percentage points.

In particular, for 'junior engineers' with less than 16 months of experience, who typically grow quickly through early feedback, the amount of feedback received was reduced by half after the switch to remote work, while the difference was minimal for senior engineers. Emanuel noted in the report that, for this reason, the resignation rate among engineers under 30 who used to work in the same building as their colleagues rose significantly after remote work was introduced. During the same period, the resignation rate among engineers over 30 decreased.

The researchers titled the report "The Power of Proximity to Coworkers," asking, "Will you train for tomorrow, or choose productivity for today?" The New York Times, reporting on the findings, noted that "providing less guidance is the 'hidden penalty' of flexibility."

In fact, according to a survey by job platforms JobKorea and Albamon in April 2021, among 425 workers who had successfully landed their first job within the past year and started working in a contactless environment, the most common response (30.4%) to how they felt was “It was difficult to know what and how to do things.” The second most popular answer, at 26.4%, was that they were glad not to waste time on commuting due to remote work, but a sense of uncertainty was clearly felt more strongly. "It took a long time to adapt to the job" (26.0%) and "I regretted not being able to directly observe and learn the work" (25.6%) were the third and fourth most common responses, respectively.

However, some argue that although face-to-face training has clear advantages, what really matters in education, as with remote work itself, is not the method, but the content delivered. Ellen Aisher, a professor at Loyola Marymount University (LMU), and others, wrote in an article for Harvard Business Review (HBR) last year that remote mentoring allows for flexibility in scheduling and location, and that the process can be recorded, allowing for later review and sharing with others.

Aisher and her colleagues acknowledged that "in a company, there are fewer chances for spontaneous mentoring conversations and non-verbal cues may be missed, and building relationships or trust may require greater effort." However, they also stated that successful remote mentoring is possible if clear rules are established, such as how frequently to communicate and which tools to use, enabling effective training even at a distance.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.