Post-Covid Workforce Development: A Digital Transformation and What It Means for Workforce Professionals

How will a year of remote and hybrid work affect the workforce development sector moving forward? How will the new tools, strategies for collaboration, and work routines have lasting effects on both frontline workers and their clients? A new survey and report of frontline workforce professions delves into the digital transformation following Covid-19. In collaboration with the Workforce Professionals Training Institute, the Center for New York City affairs examines the uptake of new digital tools during a year of largely remote and hybrid work. 

The report revisits important questions about pay, equity, and conditions of the workforce development workforce in the pandemic’s wake and adds new findings that address the monumental shifts in the tools, norms, and settings of work the pandemic produced. We surveyed frontline employees who were asked to don PPE and work from the office, or set up new workspaces at home, or juggle a hybrid work environment that incorporated both on-site and remote work. Workers talked about the training they need to make digital tools work for them as well as the financial support the sector needs to provide for setting up offices at home. Even with a return to work, many aspects of digital transformation will persist. A deep understanding of how the workforce development workforce incorporates these tools in helping connect job seekers to employment will be essential for spurring a fast and equitable economic recovery in New York City.  

---