This week in Careers, we looked at how companies can create an inclusive hybrid working culture and which skills will be crucial for this era of work.
In a recent Taxback.com survey, 45pc of participants said they expect working life to be hybrid in 2021. And, according to another survey by Hays, employers largely agree.
In a hybrid model, employees may divide their time between the office and their home, or some employees may be in the workplace full-time while others stay fully remote. Earlier this week, Siliconrepublic.com editor Elaine Burke wrote about some of the key things hybrid working models will need to consider.
“Extensive flexibility” will be something that more businesses accommodate, she said, as Covid-19 has “impacted the way we work forever”. But employers will also have to factor in staff wellbeing and cultural shifts during this transition. And diversity and inclusion can’t be left behind, HubSpot’s Katie Burke told us.
As the company’s chief people officer, Burke has been at the forefront of HubSpot’s pivot to a virtual working world. She’s learned that listening is a critical first step in going hybrid because “similar to company culture, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach”.
“When done right, a hybrid approach should complement a company’s commitment to being more diverse and inclusive,” Burke said. “Access to a career in tech shouldn’t be determined by your Eircode.”
Skills for the hybrid world
Cybersecurity expertise will also be essential is this changing world of work. Hays’ James Milligan explained that cyberattacks have been ramping up in the “rapidly expanded online world”. Demand for people with the right skills is high, he said, and increasingly diverse projects are becoming available.
Key information employees should bear in mind while working from home, whether that’s full-time or as part of a hybrid model, are the tax reliefs available to them and how to assess a potential employer’s health and safety policies in a remote job interview.
Finally, if you’re a graduate at the moment, it can be hard to know what your options are. But there are still plenty of opportunities at pharma companies, and Veronica Boomsma told us about the graduate programme at Amgen that she started last year.
New opportunities
This week brought some positive news for jobseekers and students. With LetsGetChecked set to hire for 50 and Chargify announcing plans for 30 new recruits, Dublin will be getting vacancies in engineering, business development, product management and more.
In Belfast, fintech software firm Lightyear is expanding and plans to double its workforce with 12 new hires.
And Google launched its Google Generation Scholarship for women studying computer science. The successful candidates will receive mentorship and €5,000 each year for the duration of their undergraduate degree, helping to prepare them for a tech career.
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