SOCIAL - BLOG
Peter Cheese CIPD @Cheese_Peter
Don’t think many would agree that we need to
get back to the office to work harder...
https://bit.ly/3sJvyMJ
Carly Barclay Event Manager at Informa
Markets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B
PTlh3oifTg&feature=youtu.be
Hear from Chris Edwards, Group Director at
Informa Markets on our plans for Facilities
Show and how we’re getting ready to welcome
you back #FAC21 #FACSHOW
Antony Slumbers @antonyslumbers
I wrote an essay for Propmodo’s MetaTrends
2021 campaign. De-Densification and the New
Metrics of the Office https://bit.ly/3udGcMc
Lucy Jeynes MD linkedin.com/in/lucyjeynes
I’m so very proud to have been a part of this
project, honouring all the police officers who
lost their lives putting themselves in harm’s
way to protect us #NationalMemorialArboretum
#police
Acas @acasorguk How do you normalise talking
about #MentalHealth in the workplace, given
that everyone has varying degrees of openness?
We sat down with Head of Responsible
Business Sarah-Jane Littleford to find out
about @Fujitsu_Global’s approach https://bit.
ly/3wif9kv #StressAwarenessMonth
CIBSE @CIBSE
According to this year’s judges @burohappold
is the company our industry should aspire to
be. Collaboration is central to its projects’
success, and the company employs a variety
of techniques to promote it. #BPA2021 winner:
https://buff.ly/3fh5qF9
LinkedIn News UK https://www.linkedin.com/
showcase/linkedin-news-uk/
PwC has become the first Big Four firm to set
out its post-lockdown arrangements, offering
staff highly flexible schedules in a significant
move away from the traditional nine-to-five
workday. Staff will spend between 40% and
60% (two to three days) at the offices and the
rest working remotely, can decide their own
working hours and most will be given a half day
on Fridays in July and August.
18 APRIL 2021
BLOG FROM RORY MURPHY, COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR, VINCI FACILITIES
A TIME TO COME TOGETHER
If this pandemic has brought us anything
to smile about it has to be the burgeoning
use of new ‘pandemic’ only phrases that
now seem to be common place in a business
vocabulary which up until exactly a year ago
had never been used...
Furlough is the most obvious example but
as we progressed through the early stages of
the pandemic and businesses reshaped their
o erings you couldn’t pass up a business story
without someone talking about how they had
‘pivoted’ from ‘o ice’ to ‘home’ or from ‘in
store’ to ‘online’ or even ‘eat in’ to ‘take away’.
The much-heralded return to o ice is now
throwing up its own fantastic example… We can
no longer talk about flexible working as that
is so pre-pandemic…. Its now all about hybrid
working models which to us followers of current
workplace trends is basically…flexible working.
Much like the pivot though, the hybrid is
nothing new… Businesses adapting to change
and dealing with uncertainty is not a new
phenomenon, albeit this last year has thrown
multiple challenges for organisations to deal
with.
The interesting thing about the use of the
word hybrid is that it suggests the combination
of only two things. Does the choice for
employees and employers in the future come
down to a binary decision between simply
the o ice or the home? If this were true, then
surely the pandemic has taken us nowhere?
The inclination and ability to work from home
existed well before 2020 and every o ice in the
UK has always been less populated on a Friday
for that very reason.
The digital liberation that the pandemic
has presented is that those of us who were
o ice bound before can now work just as well
remotely, which by circumstance has meant at
home for the majority of the last year. Building
on the evidence that remote working is good
for work/life balance, the environment and
for productivity should liberate us all to work
from wherever we can in the future to make
the biggest impact and deliver the most value.
A hybrid solution should not be seen as just
the combination of two options but more the
melding of multiple options and ingredients to
create the perfect solution.
The Nationwide Building Society recently
unveiled its post pandemic plan to allow its
18,000 team members to work ‘anywhere’, the
building society has a huge branch network,
various corporate o ices and clearly the
option would still exist to work from home.
Rory Murphy, Commercial Director, VINCI Facilities
The ‘anywhere’ approach builds on this notion
of hybrid working, with remoteness at its
heart but also opens up the opportunity to be
together.
The ability to work anywhere and to consider
the impact of location and proximity is hugely
valuable. If employees considered where they
worked in the context of their stakeholders,
then location takes on another dimension.
Working on local projects with front-line
teams will not only help visibility but will build
engagement and knowledge for employees
with roles who historically may have been ‘out
of touch’ in the corporate headquarters. Those
with customer facing responsibilities could
collaborate with their customers and work from
their premises for a couple of days a month,
helping to build relationships while developing
a greater understanding of their customer’s
business. There are no reasons why visiting a
material supplier or supply chain partner and
basing yourself with them for a day should be
discounted and even choosing to work flexibly
in a local community centre or co ee shop
would have tangible benefits.
We need to come together a er this last year
and connectivity, collaboration and proximity
to our key stakeholders will all be crucial to
building and developing a strong recovery.
Our digital liberation has cemented our ability
to adapt and to use the technology we have,
but it lacks the essence of social interaction.
The new world of work a ords us the ability
to take ourselves and our work wherever we
want, whenever we want and we should seize
that opportunity to make sure we do that work
alongside those people with whom we can add
the most value and maybe have the most fun.
ADVICE & OPINION
/bit
/watch?v=B
/3udGcMc
/3sJvyMJ
/3fh5qF9
/
