Skills

How to be successful starting out as a remote worker

Remember your first day at work?

Keen to meet new people, eager to learn. In previous decades, working life was more predictable, and newcomers would learn their profession or trade on-the-job, alongside more experienced colleagues.

By contrast, work

today can be a lonely affair. Navigating your own career is more hazardous – jobs are more fragmented, career paths less linear, working may be largely from home or performed via technology, and opportunities to build social bonds and learn from others are more squeezed.

Since the pandemic, the amount of remote working has soared. At the same time, the gig economy continues apace – for many, working life is solitary and disjointed, it’s harder than ever to learn from others.

Where does this leave fledgling staff? We’ve investigated how new employees still manage to learn the skills they need to succeed, even when they feel isolated and side-lined. And we’ve discovered that they respond with a mix of ingenuity, guile and doggedness. We’ve gone to a very specific location to do this investigation – looking at how merchant marine cadets fare when they are denied access to opportunities to learn. We followed a group of cadets for five months as they completed their shore-based training before being posted on board commercial ships to consolidate their classroom learning. Cadets are expected to spend time on the ship’s bridge, absorbing the complex tasks of navigation that are essential for their career progression to become officers. At sea, cadets need to put theory into practice, learning how to navigate a ship through busy lanes or into port for instance. Classroom simulations can go so far, but doing this when feeling seasick, tired, lonely, or under pressure is a different experience. On board, the captain and officers are responsible for ensuring cadets get an opportunity to learn.

Unsurprisingly, we found senior crew were often too busy, or under too much pressure, to allow the young recruits access to opportunities to acquire skills – particularly navigation. Instead, many saw cadets as ‘menial workers’, and their training was hit or miss. These cadets – usually one per ship – were having to learn their craft in an isolated, confined and sometimes fearful place. How did cadets respond? What we discovered surprised us – many managed to get around the obstacles blocking them from gaining vital experience on board. They did this through a mix of tactics. Some would complete a full shift of menial work, and in their spare time make their way to the bridge where they could learn essential navigational experience. This came at a personal cost – ships can be dangerous places and rest times are important. Some learned the rotas – knowing where the friendly faces were or when staff might be more relaxed and open to helping cadets – made all the difference to their opportunities to learn. Some managed to prove their competence, which in turn led senior staff to call on them when under strain – and briefly do away with an on-board hierarchy. By working creatively with the on-board structures (such as rotas) cadets were able to turn, what used to be barriers to learning, into opportunities. We call this ‘stealth’ work – flying under the radar to get vital experience.

How to thrive as a remote worker

How does this help today’s remote workers, gig workers and freelancers who have more autonomy but arguably fewer opportunities to learn directly from colleagues? Although we’ve looked at an unusual context, our research can be more broadly applied. As on board a ship, there are boundaries and structures in many workplaces that may hinder learning – not least, hierarchies, and constraints of time and space. All managers are under pressure and have limited resources. Technologies and staff change all the time. Those who changed jobs during the pandemic may never even have met their colleagues in person. In order to learn, newcomers need to be creative. They must think strategically about how they can carve out opportunities for casual encounters (online or face-to-face), identify supportive colleagues, create bonds or observe directly how other staff operate. These types of encounters have always been opportunistic – the celebrated ‘water cooler’ moments – but nowadays these opportunities may need to be manufactured, not taken for granted. As an individual, you can’t just stroll into places – be it the bridges on a ship, online meetings, or boardrooms – and learn your craft, no matter how much you may want to. Our research shows that the newcomers who coped best were those who found ingenious ways of identifying and getting access to the people and places they needed to progress, even if these spaces were ‘guarded’ by gatekeepers. They were prepared to sacrifice their personal time to be able to practise their task. In our research, the more passive the cadet, the more likely they were to flounder. Employers also need to understand that opportunities for new employees to learn from experienced colleagues (and vice versa) are diminishing. They need to identify what newcomers are missing out on if they are working remotely – and design programmes that build those experiences. In a changing workplace, employees and employers need to craft opportunities to learn their trade more strategically, rather than assuming that learning will just happen on the job. But this comes at a cost. Individuals may have to work harder and longer to get these vital opportunities, while their more experienced colleagues reap the benefits of hybrid working through a better work-life balance.

This article was written by Jacky Swan, Eivor Oborn, and Ila Bharatan and originally appeared on the Warwick Business School website. For more information on WBS at The Shard, please visit wbs.ac.uk/go/London

INVEST IN YOURSELF with in-demand skills

Every business is only as good as its employees.

Since the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the job market, many employers have reassessed the skills and expertise they seek in their staff. As business goals evolve to ensure both short- and long-term success, so does the staff skillset needed to align with the new organisational vision. This has driven many people to upskill, retrain, or fast-track their learning to keep up with an ever-changing environment.

London South Bank University

(LSBU) are proud to offer accelerated degree programmes at their new Croydon campus, shaped by leading academics to meet employer demands, and enable professionals to earn a degree in just two years, pay lower fees and launch their career sooner. Now more than ever, is the time for professionals to invest in themselves with the expertise that will make them stand

out in the job market.

So what expertise do employers value today?

We will explore the emerging in-demand skills and evaluate LSBU’s commitment to developing high-calibre graduates who are ready to meet the changing needs of the business world.

1. Data literacy

Businesses have seen unprecedented change and have come to realise the importance of getting to grips with their data, in order to have a better view of their organisation and make informed decisions. This has led to analytical skills becoming a sought-after attribute in new employees. Whether businesses need to identify risks or investigate a problem, professionals who can interpret data, identify trends and integrate new information are increasingly valuable. LSBU supports students in meeting this employer demand, particularly with modules which cover the use for data in decisionmaking, such as Data for Decision Making or Professional and Digital Skills. The teaching explores the range of ways of handling, analysing and presenting data. The goal is to enable storytelling, drawing key insights from data and using this to drive informed business decisions.

2. Soft skill success

Whilst proficiency in the technical side of finance or business management remains vital to organisations, there is also a rising need for professionals who possess soft skills, such as persuading and influencing stakeholders and colleagues. Finance professionals especially are moving away from simply reporting, and are now shifting focus to providing advice to facilitate growth. LSBU ensures their students are equipped with a toolkit of soft and hard skills to succeed in their careers. Both the finance and business accelerated degrees are shaped to include management modules, which explore the complexities of organisations and key management, organisational behaviour and people management strategies.

3. Aptitude for technology

Today’s fast-moving world requires businesses to effectively utilise technology, and the right kind of technology, in order to keep up with change. The pandemic has fast-tracked digital transformation in many organisations and it’s an asset to have the skills to use the latest digital trends and apply the most relevant to their business goals. Exploiting these technologies helps organisations remain agile and resilient to future environmental changes. The rich learning content in LSBU’s accelerated degrees explores digital skills, finance in a digital world and digital transformation in organisations. That ensures graduates enter the job market ready to apply the theory, concepts and practices to support business change.

4. Critical thinking

Another skill that is essential to businesses is critical thinking. Since the start of the pandemic, effective critical thinking is more important than ever in making business decisions due to the vast quantity of information circulating in the world, especially as much of it changes on a daily basis. This makes business planning difficult so the ability to think ahead and evaluate the most reliable information, for the long-term, is vital. The learning environment and programme structure at LSBU nurtures critical thinking, innovation, creativity and enterprise. The application of theory to practice, in order to develop and implement appropriate business strategies, consolidates the use of these skills in a real business environment.

5. Autonomous working

An increasingly common hiring trend by HR managers is skills-based hiring, of which the ability to work independently is highly sought after. As remote working practices thrive, employers seek employees who can work proactively and autonomously to ensure their role is a success, irrespective of working location. LSBU aims to enhance the skills needed for independent learning, in order to ensure that students are prepared to take responsibility for their own personal development during the course of their degree programme and in their future careers. Self-managed study supplements and complements classroombased learning, building up knowledge with a mix of learning activities that are supported by the virtual learning environment. London South Bank University’s strong links to professional bodies, industry specialists and former students, keep it at the forefront of a changing business world. This market intelligence feeds into maintaining first class business courses for its students, especially those studying the Accounting and Finance or Business Management accelerated degree programmes who want to retrain sooner and enter the workforce with highly competitive skills.

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