At our virtual London roundtable held in October, we asked if working from home is set to be part of the ‘new normal’ post-pandemic, and what advantages to firms there might be. Here three of the panellists share their views.
Eugenio Cicconetti, head of global financial client group, Schroders – In the London office, our working policy was already including one day per week where everyone was working from home. The pandemic has just accelerated this process.
Post-pandemic, finding the right balance between office and home is a complicated task and it really needs to be done in a way where each team sets up its own schedule. It’s a matter of trust. Going forward, I think we’ll have a 50/50 balance between home and office
At Schroders, we also feel it is very important that the senior people are able to transfer their experience to junior colleagues while in the office. I have been lucky enough to learn a lot from each manager I worked with, and it is very important that we continue to share office time with our younger colleagues.
Robin Creswell, managing principal, Payden & Rygel – I would turn the question upside-down and say that, apart from Covid, never let a good war go to waste. The industry has more opportunity now, because management structure is being thrown up in the air, consolidation is well and truly on the table and the capital markets are prepared to finance and support consolidation. I see very few structural risks to the industry, and actually considerable upside, because the pressures that we’ve been under over the last ten years are now recognised and we’ve got the management tools, we’ve got the finance and we’ve got the motivation to reform the industry. Our industry is going to grow very substantially over the next ten years, the capital markets are going to increase, the amount of money floating around the system is going to increase, so really there’s very little risk to the industry. There’ll be some losers, but on balance, the industry is going to grow and there’s just massive potential and upside.
Julian Ide, head of Emea distribution, Franklin Templeton – What I think is quite interesting is even people who at the beginning of the pandemic preferred to work from home due to concerns about travelling on public transport or, more specifically, actually being in the office, when they come in, they realise that they slightly miss it.
Our work-from-home contingency response to Covid-19 has been working very well and returning to the office in any given location will not start until applicable government advice changes. We have a robust work-from-home capability that enables almost all of our employees around the world to work remotely. That said, with regulations and advice changing all the time, we need to keep a real balance here. It also puts a kind of premium on leadership. I took last week off and I came back feeling that the clocks have changed, it’s daylight savings here in the UK, and the days, particularly in Scotland, are getting shorter. It’s quite a tough environment for people to work in. We’re almost having to come back and rethink how we respond to that.
Nigel Smith, managing director, UK client group, Ninety One – Longer-term, we definitely see the office as the centre of gravity for our business. It’s the place where energy is created, it’s the place where ideas are generated, it’s the place where proper enduring relationships are forged. Whilst there’ll definitely be flexibility going forward, we’re very clear that there’s real value attached to the continued use of the office as a hub for our business.
Read the full roundtable here: London roundtable: Operating in the new normal
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