WEAR WORDS
We asked eight Wear business leaders : Has your team fully returned to the office , or are some of them still working from home ? Has Covid changed the way your company works forever ?
Chris Kean , managing director , dodio The energy , collaboration and general vibe of a full office contributes immeasurably to our overall creativity and , as a team , we were all itching to get back in as soon as restrictions allowed .
We ’ ve always been pretty flexible , but post-Covid we ’ ve become even more so , and it ' s not unusual for everyone to work from home once a week . Avoiding the inevitable spontaneous brainstorm can be a welcome alternative when you need to get your head down and crack on !
Michael Hendy , director , Certax Sunderland We have now largely returned to the office and we are enjoying seeing colleagues and meeting clients in person again . We ’ ve retained a small amount of home working to allow staff greater flexibility . This is likely to remain in place permanently .
Covid has allowed us to enhance the way we work , with better use of technology . Zoom and Teams allows us to meet with clients more frequently but with time savings compared to traditional meetings .
Alison Henshaw , partner , Torgersens Chartered Accountants We are back to normal working and all but one of our colleagues have returned to the office . The Covid experience has shown that we can be flexible if needs be .
We will continue to be office-based , but if there are occasions when a colleague needs to work from home to manage childcare , take in a delivery or have work done on their property , this can be done while maintaining continuity and not require any holidays to be taken .
Gordon Cartwright , general manager , Lumley Castle Because we ’ re a dynamic , customer-facing business , the need for office staff to be on site is important currently .
However , we ’ re looking at new ways of working that inevitably will involve homeworking when onsite requirements have been secured .
Louise Stephenson , managing director , WTTB and Precision Proco
While it would be wonderful to return to the way things were in 2019 , we must accept the fact that life has changed . Working from
home offers numerous benefits for some . When our employees are working alone , they have greater control and fewer distractions . Many people have gained more time and energy , while others have saved money since they no longer have to commute . Because we also work across many locations , communication is essential to keeping the business functioning smoothly .
Mark Catterall , chief executive , Smart Media Group Smart Media Group moved to a hybrid working model during the pandemic and we have continued to provide flexible opportunities for our team , though the majority of our people prefer the collaboration that comes from being together .
In fact , we are in the process of extending our office to accommodate the growing Smart team , a reflection of the business ’ s recovery since the end of lockdown measures . While we will always be flexible , our team are voting with their feet .
Karen Eve , centre manager , Bridges Shopping Centre When your business centres around faceto-face interactions with retailers and the public , working entirely from home is never going to be possible . If you ’ re a housekeeper , a technician , security or customer service team member , then the nature of the job is to be on site , but our management team has certainly retained the flexible ethos .
However , since Covid we ’ ve found hybrid working is absolutely doable and we can balance the days we are in the office and the time spent working from home . The pandemic has made everyone realise that flexible working is the way forward .
Louise Kennedy , managing director , Oculus HR The world of work has changed , and we ’ ve seen the move to hybrid working become the norm for many of our clients . At Oculus HR , we ’ ve also adapted our working approach with a mix of home , office and on-site client meetings .
We ’ ve just moved into new office space and the team is growing so we schedule days in the office together to enable the team dynamic to form . The use of tech for meetings has also increased , which leads to more efficient use of time .
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