500 days of Lockdown
Today marks 500 days since Boris announced Lockdown on 20th March 2020.
This has affected people in a wide range of ways but we thought it might be helpful to list some of the typical changes we have heard in the market and from our clients. Hopefully this will help people with their planning. In no particular order the following is a selection of what we are hearing:
A desire to reduce their property footprint to somewhere between 50-70%.
Some are reconsidering out of town space and lower rise with less dependency on lifts.
Reformatting of office space to provide more versatility.
Greater agile working with say 2 or 3 days in the office.
Employees not being comfortable with public transport.
The permanent need to dual run at home and in the office.
Increased cleaning and cleaning to become much more visible rather than unobtrusive.
Increased video meetings.
A greater use of Apps to drive business processes (the mobile phone being the common tool people take everywhere wherever they are working).
HR directors becoming much less directive and listening to their people to retain talent.
Revisiting differential rates for different offices as differentials are harder to justify now when based on where people live.
A greater acceptance of “talent anywhere” which is helping many firms and hindering others.
An expectation of people moves as the world returns to normal. Many have felt they were not well treated, others want to move area and some have refocussed their views about what they want from their lives.
Travel budgets seem to diminishing and are under greater scrutiny.
People are recognising that there is an opportunity to improve diversity.
Supervision and Knowledge Management are big areas of focus.
A greater organisational focus on employees in less developed jurisdictions who have not perhaps been as lucky as we have been in the UK in relation to vaccination programmes.
Revisiting business continuity plans should we suffer a Covid-20 or Covid -21 and resilience testing.
Firms are upping the ante on both improving their operational platforms and on how to digitise the delivery of legal work in their groups.
On cash firms have generally done well but still feel the exposure from the first 3 months of lockdown and so are keen to be more cautious.
Firms are looking to increase the diversity of their client base given how some sectors have been seriously affected.
Greater investment in technology.
Revisiting marketing and how to sell – most recognise the rules have changed and are trying to work out what this means. Lockdown selling was hard
A renewed focus on ESG and Carbon Neutrality.
Repayment of furlough. Furlough was necessary and many firms went through a torrid 3 months but have ended up having a much better year than expected. Those firms experiencing profit hikes are feeling the moral need to repay.
Although for many still booming a big question over the future of commercial real estate (both retail and office). Lawyers only need change to make money but people are not clear on where this is going and the effect it will have on cities. Logistics looks set to continue growing.
A related question on the future of residential property and private client in the short term – have all the transactions and wills now been done perhaps leaving a more barren period until things pick up again?
Firms are putting their arms around junior people and figuring out how to support them better and what training and supervision looks like. This is driving a greater need for others to be in the office.
Culture – people are concerned they may lost some of their culture. To quote one client. “I knew everyone as I have been in the same firm for 20 years in a leadership role. I now see so many people I don’t know when in the office”
A renewed focus on security given the different risk profile we are seeing (emails being sent to personal accounts, weaker physical security at people’s homes, increased malware etc).
A push on eradicating printing. When people return to the office I would expect to see less MFDs in the office.
Respect of employees feelings – firms are recognising that whatever the law and official guidance this is an era where many of their people will have been affected in different ways which will have shaped how they think about the world. There are lots of different views and these are still unfolding.
We feel very lucky. Our clients have been very supportive and we have been blessed to work on some great projects. We and our families are healthy and solvent which I guess is all you can ask for and in many ways the future is coming to us - demand is increasing in relation to the things we know about. We are seeing a real uptick in “real legal IT” namely improving the actual delivery of legal work. For us lockdown has made many exercises more efficient but going forward I suspect we need to see a blend of both physical and virtual. We need to work this balance out but I certainly am not missing the day in day out 7.10 am train to London.
Here's to us all progressing and finding the perfect balance (and being better prepared should this ever happen again).
Hyperscale Group is a technology, operational and innovation advisory and implementation business. For more information please e-mail dereksouthall@hyperscalegroup.com