It’s June – supposedly the month when all restrictions on social distancing and the like will be lifted. Life, allegedly, will return to “normal”. While it remains to be seen quite whether that happens in full – and one can clearly understand government caution around this – one principle does seem to be being established: the vaccines work – particularly in protecting against hospitalisation and death, which in turn reduces pressure on the NHS from any uptick in infections, which is what lockdowns have been primarily designed to ensure. So, we have a real possibility, over the summer, of the post pandemic working environment gradually revealing itself.
I have talked a lot previously in this column about how the future marketplace might function. But that has tended to be in terms of the framework and principles. What I haven’t really touched on is what the actual working day might feel like. And I think it will be very different for people with roles such as mine.
As I write this, I am sat in my office on Leadenhall Street. I have taken to coming in here at least once a week, mainly for a change of scenery. Given the numbers of cars at the station and the increased bustle around EC3 compared to when I was here last autumn, I see I am not alone in embarking on slow switch back to the City.
But it is quite different. I am no longer a devotee of the 7.23am Sevenoaks to London Bridge. Based on the guidance of the train operators that it is best to avoid travelling between 7am and 8am if you do not want to stand in a rather crowded train with somebody else’s breath steaming up your glasses – and I am not quite ready for that level of fun as yet – I am travelling in a bit later. But I can still carry out that morning routine – clear down some emails, look at the day ahead in terms of meetings, see which Hungarian centre-back Arsenal will almost certainly not sign – that I have always done. It just now happens a bit at home and a bit on a seat on a much less crowded train. And I have come today because I have a couple of actual physical meetings with real people, one of which is a lunch indoors, extraordinarily. Had I not, I would probably have chosen another day to come in. And once the last meeting is finished, at about 4.30pm, I will probably go home on another less crowded train because I can finish off what I need to do either on the train or when I get there. All this is, to my mind, much more civilised, but, more importantly to our beloved LIIBA members whose sponsorship we so greatly value, much more productive.
So, I see my role evolving to one in which I am in the City multiple days a week, although not often five. But rarely here for the whole day. In town when meetings are best done in person; at home when the peace and quiet aids concentration. Plus, crucially, in Brussels or Frankfurt or Washington or elsewhere when our need to represent our members’ international interests means face-to-face interaction with overseas government, regulators and colleagues is the optimal approach.
This leads me to a gripe I need to get off my chest. Increasingly, we hear talk about employers “enticing” staff back into the office. On the flipside are those rather draconian firms that have basically announced they will order people back in. Both of these miss what I think is quite an important point: if you employ consenting adults to do a reasonably well defined job, surely you should trust them to make the judgement as to where they best locate themselves to do that job? Otherwise, why else would you trust them to make any other decisions on your behalf?
If you can make that leap, I think you will find that staff, treated like adults and not two-year-olds (which some HR departments have a tendency to want to do) can conclude for themselves that some meetings are better done physically and that co-location can help creative conversations etc and develop the flexible balance between home and office that the pandemic has shown we can all enjoy. This, without it impacting on output. Indeed, I would argue that this will grow as suitably empowered employees thrive in a more mature relationship with their firm.
All that leaves is the question of what to wear. Today, because I am meeting people, I have gone for trousers and a shirt. When I have just come up to town for variety, I have gone jeans. I am not ruling out a suit at some stage – especially in Europe where they have always tended to be more formal. So dress, like location, will be more flexible. And I fervently believe that flexibility and trust will mean the working day delivers a more productive post-pandemic partnership between staff and employer that can only be great news for the market as a whole.
