Technology & Data

Coping with Post Lockdown Learning Loss

Mohammed Bell · 2 Aug 2026

Many of our junior staff who joined during the pandemic are struggling to keep up with the latest industry developments, we have tried various training programs but they do not seem to be having the desired impact. This is causing frustration among our senior team members who have to dedicate extra time to guiding them, which in turn is affecting our project timelines. As someone who has been in the industry for a while, I am wondering what strategies other companies are using to help their employees catch up on the skills they missed out on during the lockdown period. How do you prioritize learning and development for employees who started their careers remotely during the pandemic?

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4 replies

Patrick Spencer · 2 Aug 2026

I think the issue isn't just about the training programs, but also about the fact that these junior staff members have missed out on the informal learning that happens in an office environment, like overhearing conversations or learning from colleagues' experiences, and that's something we can't easily replicate with online training, we've seen this with our own interns who started remotely and are now struggling to catch up.

Lily Smith · 2 Aug 2026

I think we're misunderstanding the issue here, our new starters are not struggling because of a lack of training, but because they're not getting enough hands-on experience with tools like Tableau, which we've been using for about 6 months now. We've seen a significant improvement in our more experienced team members who have been using it for over a year, so I think we should focus on getting our junior staff more involved in projects that utilize these tools, like the one we did with 20 consultants from Accenture last year.

Rowan Higgins · 2 Aug 2026

I've seen this issue at our company too, where new starters who joined remotely are finding it tough to get up to speed. We've had some success with pairing them up with a buddy who can show them the ropes, and also using tools like Slack and Trello to make sure they're connected to the rest of the team. Our junior staff who've been with us for over a year are now helping to develop some of the training content, which seems to be working better than the external programs we've tried.

Ralph Obrien · 2 Aug 2026

I've made the mistake of assuming online courses would be enough to get our new starters up to speed, but it's clear that's not working and we need to rethink our approach.