Blog #4 in 5-part blog series: Your Hunch About the Difference Between Hiring for Remote and Onsite Jobs was Right…and We Have the Data to Prove It

As we noted in the first three blogs in this series on our groundbreaking study of remote versus onsite/hybrid roles, there is a clear business case to distinguish these roles—from personality traits to work environment/culture elements. In this latest blog, we will dig deeper into the specific experiences and skills that differentiate remote and in-office roles in driving performance and retention.

On the Hutrics hiring platform technology, we utilize a proprietary and highly predictive measure of experiences (biodata) and situational judgment. We base our measure on decades of practical and academic research that shows a strong connection between elements of experiences (biodata) and situational judgment and key outcomes like performance and retention. Let’s look at the experiences and skills that distinguish remote versus onsite/hybrid roles in our latest study.

Summary Table of Unique Experience/Skill Predictors of Performance and Retention

Performance Drivers of Onsite/Hybrid Workers

Assessments of situational judgment allow hiring managers to get an understanding of how a worker would handle certain scenarios by laying out a situation and giving the individual options (some optimum, some not) to choose from. From our comprehensive study, Hutrics measured numerous aspects of situational judgment—and the one that differentiated the job performance of onsite/hybrid workers was Team Building.  This makes sense contextually and from a practical standpoint—onsite/hybrid workers are working in the same space, interacting directly more frequently—so the ability to build teams and teamwork is important to driving job performance for those in that role type. It is important because when making hiring decisions—if you know that onsite/hybrid job candidates will perform better with teambuilding skills, then that is something to look for in the candidate assessment process.

From an experiences perspective, we found 9 areas that consistently drove performance regardless of role type.  However, we found 10 key areas that drive job performance specifically for onsite/hybrid workers. Again, our study found very unique profiles of high performing and loyal employees in remote versus onsite/hybrid roles.

These unique predictors could be categorized under ‘Role Clarity and Communication’ and ‘Drive and Resilience’, which again makes sense due to the more structured work setup and opportunities for interpersonal interactions of onsite/hybrid workers. Using these insights as part of your hiring process will maximize your hit rate and allow you to not only hire individuals in onsite/hybrid roles that have these experiences, but also provide a Day One managerial roadmap for the hiring manager to maximize performance.

Retention Differentiators for Remote Workers

For remote workers, experiences (biodata) played a significant role in their desire to stay with the organization. The 5 key areas that we uncovered can be categorized into three buckets: ‘Relationships/Partnerships’, ‘Work Prioritization’, and ‘Learning’ and they are focused directly on how they perform their day-to-day duties in their role. These make a lot of practical sense as they highlight skills likely needed to thrive in a remote role.

These insights not only build a specific hiring profile based on work location, but they also provide every hiring manager a specific playbook on how to effectively manage remote workers using actual data and analytics, and not assumptions from the popular press.

Summary of Key Findings

• For Remote Roles: focus on the three critical categories of experiences on day one to maximize Retention
• For Onsite/Hybrid Roles: prioritize the three key driver buckets to impact Performance on Day One
• For both role types: foundational experiences such as flexibility, execution, being seen as a leader and getting up to speed drive performance for both onsite/hybrid and remote workers

This 5 part blog series continues with:

• Blog #5: 5 Key Implications for Hiring and Development for Remote vs. Onsite/Hybrid Roles

For more information about Hutrics’ comprehensive leadership assessments (that include competency assessments along with personality, working memory, culture fit, experiences) and how they can help you achieve better business results, contact us today.