Remote Work and Online Employees’ Training in Russian KIBS Companies
The Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge of the Higher School of Economics (ISSEK HSE) presents 2019 survey results regarding the usage of remote work and online training practices across KIBS companies in Russia. The survey results indicate that Russian KIBS companies have been actively adopting remote work practices, online training and cooperation with customers even before the worsening of the epidemiological situation.
The ISSEK HSE survey was conducted in 2019 as part of the long-term project ‘Monitoring of Knowledge-Intensive Business Services in Russia’. The sample includes more than 600 large, medium and small businesses operating in IT, law, accounting, auditing, management consulting, architecture, engineering, industrial design, advertising, marketing and market research industries, and located in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Novosibirsk and other cities with more than one million people population. Respondents were asked to answer a series of questions about the prevalence of online formats of employees’ interaction, training, and cooperation with customers.
The survey results indicate that Russian KIBS companies have adopted remote work practices even before the worsening of the epidemiological situation (Fig. 1). In general, remote practices were used in almost half of the organisations (49.5%). The highest share of users in advertising and marketing (61.2%) and information technology (58.2%), while the least — in architecture and engineering (32%).
Fig. 2 shows an intense use of online training practices in employees’ business education by 46.4% of KIBS companies. While management consulting companies encourage employees to take both corporate online trainings and massive open online courses (MOOCs), IT companies mostly prefer employees to choose internal corporate courses. In remaining spheres both formats of online learn-ing are popular, but employees rarely use them simultaneously.
Russian KIBS companies are actively introducing tools for remote cooperation with customers (Fig. 3). Besides commonly used emails (97.3%), most of them contact customers through messengers (75.1%) and remote conferencing services (69.4%). In addition, 41.2% of KIBS companies exchange documents with clients using cloud storages and repositories. Special project management tools and corporate messengers are implemented by one fourth and one sixth of all companies respectively.
Thus, innovative digital technologies helping to organise an effective remote interaction and infor-mation exchange are widely used by KIBS companies in Russia. Almost half of the respondents ap-ply remote work and online employees’ training practices as parts of regular business routine. Offline interaction with customers remains important but is safely supplemented by digital channels — mes-sengers, remote conferencing services, use of cloud storages.
Authors: Nikolay Chichkanov & Veronika Belousova
Translator: Zhaklin Krayushkina
Editor: Maria Rukhalenko