HPDI: Employees of large companies will work from home about 40 per cent of the time at least until the end of this year

Employees of most big companies will continue to work from home for about 40 per cent of the daily work time, at least until the end of 2020, according to a study by HPDI (Human Performance Development International). The rest of the time, employees will work from the office, but the digitization process will accelerate, with employers wanting to be even better prepared for similar situations that could arise in the future and may require the remote work of most staff.

Main findings:

• The activity of large companies will take place about 60% of the time in the office and 40% at home, at least six months
• An HPDI study reveals that 36% of employees consider lack of understanding of emotions as the main challenge of working remotely
• Despite the relaxation of the measures imposed by the authorities, the main trend on the training and teambuilding market remains the passage of events in the online environment

HR consulting solutions provider HPDI recently conducted a survey with the help of more than 3,000 participants in the webinars it organized, starting with the second half of March. Respondents come from a variety of fields, from IT and banking to the automotive or pharmaceutical component industry. Among the objectives of the study was to identify the main problems faced by employees working remotely. Thus, 36% of respondents cited the lack of understanding of emotions and personal feelings as the main impediment to working from home. Poor transmission of information was the biggest challenge for 28% of employees included in the research, and 23% were particularly dissatisfied with the increase in response times, in the absence of direct interaction. In proportion of 13%, the employees considered that their activity was hampered especially by problems related to the communication channels, respectively to the various video platforms they used..

“Companies will operate in a mix between office work and homework in the next period, and one of the few segments where they will invest will be digitalization. Most employers have noticed that people can do most of their work from home, but at the same time they are beginning to understand that they need to be supported to work at full capacity in this system, which is new to many. Our research aims to help both employees and employers to determine the main inconveniences and overcome them. I am glad to see a resurgence of interest in learning programs, from trainings, coaching sessions and even teambuilding. Of course, the re-entry in a normal rhythm for the market of this type of services will occur gradually “, considers Petru Păcuraru, founder of HPDI.

According to HPDI, in the conditions in which the relaxation measures taken by the authorities will continue, the training market will gradually recover, from month to month, so that towards the end of the year it will stabilize at a certain normality. At best, the teambuilding segment will resume gathering people, in smaller groups and respecting the norms of social distancing, in July – August. In April, HPDI launched “Becoming the Digital Manager”, an integrated program containing five three-hour webinars designed to support the remote management process. It has already been requested by 15 companies, and in May a partnership was concluded with 3PM, an online educational and interactive platform, where students will be able to access information about HPDI webinars and trainers.