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Firms' Bumpy Road To Hybrid Working

Jackie Bennion

25 March 2021

Firms are asking many questions of HR and legal teams to clear a path for returning workforces. The “contract” between employer and employee is a different beast from what it was a year ago. The genie of working from home is out of the bottle, but no easy instruction manual comes with a “hybrid” working model.

Those who have spoken to this news service say that if the transition to hybrid is managed poorly, businesses could face a litany of discrimination claims, unnecessary employment churn, and lose top talent when labour markets fully reopen.

Brian Kropp, head of human resources research at the shows that City of London vacancies dropped by 36 per cent in 2020, with 30 per cent fewer job seekers because of the pandemic.

Where growth has remained strong managing director Hakan Enver says "is in IT, marketing, and digital roles."

Kropp at Gartner also raises what the last year has done for the professional fortunes of women.

The US in particular has pegged them as crucial to the economic recovery but women have dropped out of the labour market disproportionately compared with their male colleagues in the last year.

“Even if they all come back, the fact they have a year-plus gap on their CV suggests that they won’t be on the same trajectory as before,” Kropp said.

Women are also more likely to lose out on promotion as companies pivot to more permanent remote working as another consideration for firms trying to address equity.

Gartner research found that 75 per cent of hiring managers are more likely to promote those who are office-facing, seeing them as higher-performing. Equally, research shows that men are much more inclined and interested in working from the office than women, who prefer to continue working from home.

“It’s another reason, sadly, why women will become more career disadvantaged because of the lingering impacts of the pandemic.”