For new hires, remote work brings challenges, opportunities – KIRO 7 News Seattle

LONDON – (AP) – Rebekah Ingram’s remote internship comes with a number of unexpected challenges: She lacks proper office furnishings, her mother calls her a lot while she works, and her dog barks on video calls.

Your situation will be familiar to anyone who has worked from home during the coronavirus pandemic. The difference for Ingram is that, like many other young people who have started in the past 18 months, she has not spent time in a traditional office. She speculates that working remotely is “much more informal”.

“It’s kind of trippy because … you work, but … you are in your own environment,” said the 22-year-old, who is an intern at Like Minded Females Network, a global not-for-profit technology and entrepreneurship in London.

Many 2020 graduates left school and entered a world in turmoil with limited career prospects. Some lost job opportunities as companies canceled internships or froze hiring altogether. As restrictions have been relaxed in many places, it has become easier to find jobs, but work remains far from normal.

Most of all, many young workers say they know they are missing out when their office is the four walls of their bedroom. They would like more opportunities for everyday social exchange with their colleagues in order to build camaraderie and find mentors.

Sohini Sengupta, 22, had an easy transition to working remotely because she was used to it in school, but she lacks the sense of community in her job.

“When I started working, I took a look at my workplace website and saw photos of them going on trips together, having fun at the office pool table … something I couldn’t experience,” said Sengupta. who lives in Calcutta, India, and works as a production intern at India Today, a media company based in New Delhi.

Annabel Redgate, 25, Public Relations Account Executive at TANK PR agency in Nottingham, England, started her current position in February. When the pandemic restrictions were lifted a few months ago, she started reaching out to coworkers to meet for a drink after work. Now TANK has started a staggered return to the office and it’s the social atmosphere that she’s most looking forward to.

“PR is a very personal industry, so I’m looking forward to the atmosphere in the office,” she said.

For Maya Goldman, a 23-year-old health reporter from Washington, DC, starting her career from a distance meant setting boundaries for yourself.

It was “hard to figure out … when it was appropriate to tell my bosses that I was ready for the night, or when to have lunch and how long to have lunch,” Goldman said.

Many employers recognize the need to help new teleworkers feel welcome.

Every morning at 9:00 am, employees from Trevelino / Keller, a marketing company in Atlanta, take part in Spotify at 9, where everyone plays the same song and talks about it on Slack. They have also hosted book clubs and virtually followed TED talks.

It’s part of trying to ensure that “as you wake up remotely every day of your first career, you feel like part of a company and part of our culture,” said Dean Trevelino, co-founder of the company.

Liza Streiff, CEO of Knopman Marks Financial Training, a financial education company in New York, recently hosted a barbecue at her place, the first in-person event for the company since the pandemic.

Many of their employees met in person for the first time. It was two of the youngest workers – an intern and another worker who recently joined full-time after an internship – who told Streiff “how much that meant to them”.

Companies also help their employees take advantage of mentoring opportunities that they may have missed.

Trevelino / Keller, Like Minded Females Network, and Knopman Marks all implemented buddy programs during the pandemic that match new employees with older employees who they can seek advice and help within their company.

Not all new hires feel like they’re missing out on working remotely. Many find it easier to reconcile work and life if they don’t have to commute to the office every day.

For Matthew Toale, a marketing apprentice at Find Your Flex, a UK job agency, the pandemic move to remote work had another benefit – it made networking more convenient. As an introvert, he struggled at events and was far more successful in online networking.

Networking online “is a lot easier for me than plunging headlong into a face-to-face conversation,” Toale said.

As the pandemic subsides, many companies may allow their employees to work from home, at least temporarily.

Mabel Abraham, a professor at Columbia Business School, says there is still no data on the potential impact of so many young workers starting careers remotely. She said some may experience a breakup with bosses and other senior coworkers who have had a harder time getting used to remote working.

However, Suneet Dua, chief product officer of accounting giant PwC US, suspects the impact will be positive, both in terms of strengthening the resilience and adaptability of young workers, as well as the technological advances that have been made to enable remote work .

“That’s the greatest benefit to our society that we can imagine that we don’t even see right now,” he said. “(What) we will see in three to five years will be amazing.”

There have also been some rumors that remote working offers more opportunities for diversity, but Abraham warns that it can actually increase inequalities in the workplace. This is because there is a gap between newly hired employees of diverse backgrounds who may live far away and a core group of existing employees who live closer to home and eventually return to the office.

The core workers “are usually a more homogeneous group, perhaps more male or more white for example,” she said.

Sonya Barlow, founder of the Like Minded Females Network, hires people based on skills rather than their résumé or experience, being aware of the barriers to entry some groups in the corporate world may face.

“I tend to hire people who are just graduating or having alternative educational pathways,” said Barlow.

One such setting was Ingram, who worked in a grocery store at the beginning of the pandemic but dreamed of starting her own business.

In the past few weeks, Ingram finally had the opportunity to meet Barlow in person, work with her in a co-working space, or meet with customers in coffee shops. She found it refreshing to get away from her home office and hopes to develop the skills she needs to become an independent business owner.

“I would like to get the most out of this internship,” she says.

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