Where do graduates belong in a hybrid world?

There has been a general shift towards hybrid working but little guidance on what this means for graduates and how employers and universities can support them, writes Annie Gainsborough

In March 2020, before the first national lockdown was announced, Gradconsult shifted our graduate assessment centres online overnight. These assessment centres were part of the RISE programme, a European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) backed partnership initiative supporting SMEs in the Sheffield City Region to overcome barriers to recruitment of graduate talent and become successful graduate employers of the future.

This decision wasn't taken lightly, but it wasn't long before most businesses - SMEs and large corporates alike - followed suit and employees up and down the country set up home offices from bedrooms, sofas and kitchen tables. We juggled work, home schooling and housemates, all alongside the mental load of a global pandemic. It is coming up to three years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and it is clear that the nature of work, particularly office working, has changed dramatically.

'The new normal'

While this phrase was drastically overused as we grappled with a future that couldn't quite be predicted, we still haven't quite established what the new normal is in relation to our working patterns. There are a multitude of sources sharing data and comments on remote working trends, with the Office for National Statistics reporting homeworking in the UK at more than double pre-pandemic rates (increasing from 4.7 million to 9.9 million people between October to December 2019 and January to March 2022).1 Statistics have been broken down by region (the largest percentage increase in homeworking has taken place in Scotland) and gender (a gender-based homeworking gap exists, with more men working from home than women), but there is very little guidance out there on what this new normal looks like for graduates.

Homeworking data exists in relation to age (16 to 24-year-olds are the least likely to be homeworkers) and salary (less than 1 in 20 people earning under £20,000 per year have the option to work from home) giving us a clue to the reality for graduates but the picture is mixed, with data also suggesting that those with a degree are twice as likely to obtain remote work than non-graduates.2 Graduates are a diverse group, and the lack of consistent data means that expectation setting is tricky as students step from university into the world of work.

Employers' expectations

At Gradconsult we have supported SMEs in the Sheffield City Region to recruit for over 100 graduate positions across 2022 through the ERDF-funded RISE scheme, delivered in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Sheffield and Sheffield City Council. These jobs are diverse ranging from sole traders recruiting their first employee, to organisations with teams 250-people strong, across multiple sectors and job roles. This dataset of 123 jobs enabled us to shed light on SME employers' expectations of graduate working-patterns post-pandemic.

From our 2022 RISE cohort, just over half of roles were advertised as fully office/site-based (54%) with 43% offering some form of hybrid working. Only three jobs were advertised as fully remote.  

A higher proportion of technical roles are fully office/site-based at 64%, compared to 46% of general roles. This is largely down to the specialised nature of more technical positions, involving equipment not available remotely or work taking place on-site (in workshops, factories or client sites). General roles are therefore more likely to offer flexibility, with 54% of employers advertising the potential for hybrid working, compared to 31% of technical roles. However, no general roles are fully remote, indicating the importance of personal interaction for the development of soft skills as well as more job-specific learning.

Training and induction

Of the 53 roles offering hybrid working, 43% of these intend to start their graduate in the office and move to a hybrid offer after completion of training, induction, or probation (19% of total roles). The timescales on this shift vary from four weeks to six months, with a number of roles keeping it open advertising a looser 'flexibility in working arrangements' after the completion of training.

From this data we can surmise that, of the 2022 RISE cohort, 73% of inductions in SMEs take place face to face (this is made up of all 67 office-based roles, plus the 23 roles advertising a hybrid offer after completion of induction). Crucially, this is compared to only 29% of Institute of Student Employer (ISE) member roles holding face-to-face inductions.3

SMEs vs larger corporates

These two datasets suggest that SMEs are much more likely to hold inductions face to face than larger corporate organisations with established graduate programmes who are tending to opt for a virtual approach. The reason behind this gap is likely to be multi-faceted. Whereas virtual delivery for corporate graduate inductions provides graduates with a chance to efficiently meet others across a larger geographical spread, SMEs operating on one site can achieve this networking/relationship-building element more effectively through face-to-face delivery.

Economies of scale also mean that virtual delivery is going to be more efficient and effective for larger businesses with more established virtual infrastructure and more structured training programmes. For SMEs, where a lot of inductions and learning takes place through relationship-building, work-shadowing and informal conversations, this is more effectively conducted in a face-to-face manner.

Risk of virtual delivery 'too big' for SMEs

71% of ISE members believe that the quality of their training has remained the same throughout virtual delivery, but a still significant 27% believe remote development activities have negatively impacted the ability of early-career hires to progress. In SMEs, where each relationship is even more key than for larger businesses and for whom every graduate represents a larger percentage of their workforce, the risk of virtual delivery is too big to take.

Graduate views on remote working

While employers may have differing views on the effectiveness of remote working during induction, homeworking certainly comes with lifestyle benefits that can be appealing for graduates. On average, British remote workers save five hours per week, alongside £44.78 on commuting and bought lunches.4 However, SMEs are right to flag concerns around relationship building as while there may be material benefits, a fifth of homeworkers struggle with loneliness, and separating home and work lives is an issue for 3 in 10.

Given the chance to weigh these factors against each other, graduates place importance on their mental health and are unlikely to opt for a fully remote working pattern. 100% of graduates on the Liverpool City Region graduate scheme who responded to our survey say that 'in an ideal situation' they would opt for hybrid or fully office/site-based working (93% hybrid, 7% office-based).

Prospects Luminate's Early Careers Survey 2021 also revealed that 'working from home' was the least important indicator for students when looking for a job, with 'training and development' and 'career progression' coming out on top. Interestingly, 'work/life balance' is the third most important factor for students looking for jobs, suggesting that while homeworking may not be the way to achieve this, hybrid or other flexible working arrangements are important.

Graduate experiences of remote working

These issues are exacerbated for remote working graduates, with Student Minds highlighting periods of transition (in this case leaving university) as a key point of vulnerability for mental health.5 For those just starting out in the world of work, boundaries are more difficult to establish leading to burnout. As part of the ISE Development Survey 2022, Dr Helen Hughes found, 'through interviews with student hires that some of them are working really, really long hours, longer than they would have been if they were working in person'. Without the ability to physically see when colleagues leave the office, benchmarking and deducing employer expectations becomes much more complex.

This complexity around remote working and mental health comes with implications for social mobility, from access to homeworking space/equipment to role models for navigating behaviour at work. Graduates with parents in professional employment can model their work-based habits more easily than those without, especially when remote working means networking and access to professional role models is more difficult. Dr Hughes found that, 'sometimes it was actually their parents who would encourage [these graduates] and show them how to have conversations with their employer about things like their workload'. With the ISE report flagging rising numbers of graduates seeking support for their mental health, the hazards of homeworking are not experienced equally.

Skills gaps

The ISE Development Report 2022 shows that gaining these skills around managing up has long been one of the weakest skills for graduates, highlighting an important skill area for careers teams and graduate development programmes to consider, especially when it is further complicated by virtual working. One ISE employer stated that 'more skills are required in working remotely and independently. We need [student hires] to explicitly ask for help when remote working. Also, in hybrid working they need to develop different ways of networking.'

As we settle into world where hybrid working is the norm, yes, digital skills are important, but it is a renewed focus on soft skills that employers are particularly identifying as vital to the new normal. As Dr Hughes says, 'Students are the digital natives; they are perfectly capable and can get on with screen-sharing and the technological side of getting into work really well, they are absolutely fine with that. The things that they struggle with are finding the skills to be proactive and say: "I can do these tasks. Can I have some more work? Can I do some different things?"'

Alongside a continued focus on digital competency, the skills students need to thrive in a post-COVID workplace are managing up, resilience, adaptability, self-motivation and confidence.

Work experience is more important than ever

With this in mind, the ISE Development Report 2022 highlights the importance of work experience for students developing key skills and an understanding of how to operate in workplaces where hybrid working is the norm. The Prospects Luminate Early Careers Survey 2022 shows that work experience opportunities appear to mirror the preference towards hybrid formats, with 56% of respondent's recent work experience taking place either online or as a mix of online/in-person. Interestingly, respondents found hybrid placements/internships the most useful for developing skills, giving them a chance to experience different styles of working and confirm career decisions.

Despite the importance of work experience in this hybrid world, the Early Careers Survey 2022 also reveals that 29% of students hadn't taken part in any form of work experience (including volunteering) in the last 12 months. The largest group (43%) had work experience in the form of a part-time job, but often students struggle to articulate transferable skills gathered via unrelated experience.  Respondents whose parents went to university were more likely to take on work experience than those whose parents did not - once again revealing a barrier for disadvantaged groups as we establish new working patterns.

Key takeaways for careers teams

1. Embedding work-based experience: Now more than ever - given the importance of work experience and the barriers students can face to accessing these opportunities - careers teams can both improve students' future wellbeing and career prospects by continuing to work collaboratively to embed employer-led projects and other employability experience into the curriculum. In the words of Adele Brown, director of student experience at the University of Warwick, 'The degree has to be enough: leave no indispensable learning outcomes to be accumulated outside of the curriculum.'
2. Cultivating networks to support remote working: Careers teams have a part to play in supporting students for increasing numbers of virtual graduate induction, whether it is through developing networks of graduate peer support, mentoring or professional role models to help students develop benchmarks around healthy working practises and workplace behaviour on- and offline.
3. Managing student expectations: The expectations shift as students move from education into the world of work. At university, it is widely acceptable for cameras and microphones to be switched off during virtual activities, whereas this is not the case in the world of work. Careers activities should aid in managing student expectations and bridging this gap by surfacing these differences between university and the workplace, giving students safe opportunities to practice stepping outside of their comfort zone.
4. Skills development through varied delivery methods: In a hybrid world, the skills we need to support students to develop are confidence, adaptability and self-motivation. As well as delivering content around these skills, this can be achieved by considering varied methods of delivery, complementing face-to-face activities with opportunities for independent, self-directed learning. This was key to our design of the Leeds Beckett Confidence Development Programme, where associated pre/post session materials enabled students to continue their learning independently around topics that sparked interest.
5. Providing access to remote working spaces: Could universities play a role as we recognise the growing importance of co-working spaces and the community they provide? Of the general remote working population, 52% work from the kitchen with a further 25% working from a bedroom or sofa. Only 11% have a dedicated home office with the ability to physically separate work from time-off and these stats are going to be starker for graduates living in shared housing. Universities may want to consider offering access to shared remote working spaces alongside incentives such as development opportunities and networking. Not only does this fulfil regional agendas of retaining graduate talent, but also provides opportunities for different kinds of collaboration with alumni.

Questions still remain in relation to the future of work in a hybrid world, particularly as we support graduates to step out into this ever-shifting landscape. What will the longer-term impact of remote working be on graduate mobility and regional retention? Will this have additional implications for graduate happiness and mental health?6 A few things are clear: change is inevitable and not entirely predictable, but the pandemic has helped us to envisage new ways of working which, alongside support from careers teams, peers and employers, can give graduates the flexibility and confidence to thrive.

Notes

1. Homeworking in the UK - regional patterns: 2019 to 2022, ONS, 2022.
2. Remote working statistics UK, StandOut CV, 2022.
3. Graduate and apprentice skills development has changed, ISE, 2022.
4. Remote working statistics UK, StandOut CV, 2022.
5. Student Minds launches new resources to support students with their transition from school/college to university, Student Minds, 2018.
6. Are graduates happier when they return home to work after study?, Wonkhe, 2022.

Written by

Annie Gainsborough

Senior consultant

Gradconsult