IT skills and the mobile workforce
By Bill Murphy, managing director, BT Business
Published: November 25 2008 17:40 | Last updated: November 25 2008 17:40
To make the most of opportunities in the current climate, it is crucial that small and medium enterprises invest more in attracting and retaining talent. Workforces must be equipped with adequate IT skills allowing them to harness technology – in turn increasing productivity and saving money.
But BT Business research shows many small businesses are still not investing as much as they should in IT training.
One area where many small businesses could do better is in introducing new working patterns and places. Studies continually document the business benefits of flexible working – from improved staff retention and productivity, to cost savings and new business wins. At BT, nearly 80,000 of employees have the means to work flexibly. More than 14,500 work from home – which has increased each employee’s productivity on average by 20 per cent and provided huge cost savings.
However, a report we commissioned into IT skills for flexible working suggests a different story. Compiled by the Centre for Future Studies, it creates definitions for three different types of flexible working.
It defines the “first generation” as “time flexibility” – offering part-time or short-term working to employees.
The second generation involves both time and location flexibility; so in addition to offering flexi-hours to staff, technology is provided for employees to work on the move.
The most sophisticated and revolutionary form of flexible working – third generation – involves the emergence of the “virtual office”. Here, employees have total location independence and are given greater autonomy in the way they manage and plan their work.
But does the modern workforce have the IT skills needed to reap the full benefits of these emerging work styles? Our research would suggest not.
Surprisingly, although 62 per cent of small business managers claim to offer their employees some form of flexible working, they feel they lack the IT skills and training to exploit properly their existing technology and therefore achieve the most advanced, or “third generation”, of flexible working.
While many SMEs have successfully adopted first and second generation practices, few are adopting third generation practices – where technology is fully integrated to create a virtual office. They need enhanced skills that will enable them to embrace more sophisticated work styles.
At the root of the problem is a lack of training. At present, 75 per cent of SMEs do not provide specific IT training for remote workers, while 88 per cent of managers have not received any training on how to manage remote workers and are not familiar with the IT requirements. In the current climate, an increasing number of businesses are neglecting investment in training in favour of making short-term savings – something that will inevitably impact on the development of IT skills and adoption of new working styles.
The perceived cost of training is a common barrier to the development of IT skills. However it needn’t be expensive. Free mentoring and advice services are available to businesses online.
Businesses also need to recognise that, when it comes to IT skills, the workforce demographic is changing. For the first time a new generation of younger employees are entering the workforce with more advanced IT skills than their seniors. It seems that older generations in particular often value attendance as much as output, especially when they’ve grown up without computers. Indeed, a lot of employers are still wedded to a culture of office “presenteeism” – the belief that employees need to be present in the office to be working. By contrast, young workers are typically better versed in the business benefits of flexible working, and more disposed to new work styles.
As they reach management level, investment in IT training, development of IT skills and the adoption of new work styles is likely to increase. But it is important that older managers are not forgotten and that there is investment in their IT training.
The emergence of a “new workforce” is going to shake up the workplace in coming years – and employers need to start investing in training to be ready.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
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