I think we’ ve had to reframe our view as employers.”
EVENTS
Leaders – a Who’ s Who of local business leaders attended the first Teesside Boardroom event.
Reinvented – Sharon Lane( Tees Components) and John Price( Wilton Group) discuss how their businesses had adapted in recent years.
Cyber chat – below, Jerry Hopkinson( PD Ports), Mark Wikinson( razorblue) and Charlie Nettle( AV Dawson) express their views on cybersecurity.
Mental health considerations – Behaviour’ s Bob Makin( left) and Andrew Rowe, of Azets, were among those giving their views on hybrid working.
I think we’ ve had to reframe our view as employers.”
Q: How do you adapt to hybrid working? Peter Snaith: There are massive pros and cons. A lot of people like flexible working but offices are quite good places for cross-selling and building teams. Is it a good thing that people are going home, collecting their kids from school, but then logging on again and doing another four hours at night? And clients think they can get what they want at any time of day? It’ s about balance.
Bob Makin: Hybrid working’ s great but I fear a mental health crisis, with young people sitting at home, not talking to people. They still get the job done, but they don’ t have the camaraderie of coming in and talking to people. Similarly, you’ ve got a bit of brain drain in that juniors aren’ t sitting next to seniors and naturally learning. We brought people back in January and instantly, you could see them talking to each other, going to the water cooler, making cups of tea together and interacting. It’ s so much healthier. And if we don’ t find that happy balance, there’ s a long-term impact on people, not just with mental health but things like communication skills.
Mark Wilkinson: We do 50 %, so five days out of 10 in the office. But we’ re a technology business that needs to be mingling with everyone within the business. So, take an account manager- they work with project managers, solution architects, implementation people, service desk people. You just can’ t do that via Teams, so it’ s challenging. But if you aren’ t flexible, your talent pool shrinks because you lose the ability to bring talent in.
Andrew Rowe: I think we’ ve had to reframe our view as employers. At one time, if somebody said in an interview,“ Whats’ your remote working policy?” you might have thought“ skiving” but now it’ s the norm. You still need that face-to-face contact, though.
The voice of business in the Tees region | 23