Pandemic exposes digital divide between office and field workers: study

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only disrupted and transformed the workplace for millions of Canadians but has also exposed a digital divide between office workers and field workers whose jobs cannot be performed remotely, a new study has found.

The study by consulting giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Canada found that while 67 per cent of office workers were able to upgrade their digital skills during the pandemic, offering them a degree of physical and job security, less than half (49 per cent) of field workers were offered opportunities for digital upskilling.

The Canadian field worker study also found that most field workers weren’t using technology very much or at all both before (58 per cent) and during (53 per cent) the pandemic. And when asked if technology has helped them work differently since COVID-19, the majority of respondents (52 per cent) said no.

Jean McClellan, PwC Canada’s National Consulting People and Organization Leader, who led the study, told Radio Canada International that the survey shows areas of untapped potential for the use of digital technology and upskilling for field workers.

A gap in digital skills

“We are very concerned about the digital divide within the field worker community,” McClellan said.

“When we look at what has been the focus, digital skills for the office worker has been front and centre, but what we’re finding is that the conversation around the frontline workers is much more about physical safety.”

There is quite a big difference in the opportunities that are being given to field workers and that causes some concern, McClellan said.

“We know there already is a gap in digital skills, we know that jobs are changing as a result of COVID,” McClellan said.

“We were hopeful that it was temporary but as we’re seeing more systemic changes to some of the industries around hospitality and retail, and oil and gas, we know those changes are more systemic and they are going to create a need for people to think differently about the jobs that they do, and there is going to be more emphasis on digital skills to get the jobs of the future.”

There’s a lot of potential for tech-enabled improvements in operations, efficiency, communication, safety and customer experience in professions that require people to be on the worksite to perform their jobs, the study found.

Preparing for the jobs of the future

One of the case studies that the researchers looked at was a utility company where the maintenance workers had to go onto job sites and manually test and access certain machinery, McClellan said.

“Through digital investments, what we were able to do was to put tablets in their hands, where they could use the internet-of-things technology to test mechanisms, which ultimately created a better and safer workplace for them,” McClellan said.

“But what changed in that is that they had more time to look at data and the analytics around data, helping them to understand the data that they were using.”

This change helped shift and transform that workforce, she added.

“The really interesting thing that we also know is that the vast majority of workers – whether in the field or the office – want upskilling opportunities to learn new skills,” McClellan said. “Half of the workers know and fear that their jobs will be obsolete in just a few years. So they know that this is coming and they want those opportunities.”

Upskilling is not just related to digital technology but also the development of “soft skills” such as leadership or customer service, McClellan said.

Business owners need to understand that and examine the support that they are giving their frontline workers, she said.

“But if you are a frontline worker, you are a field worker, taking every opportunity that you can to upskill yourself in digital skills, both soft and hard skills, will pay off in the future and is something that every field worker should be focused on as well,” McClellan said.