I shared an article yesterday that was full of praise for businesses looking to move to a more flexible working model, giving users choice to how they work not where they work.
Rishi Sunak viewpoint is also very interesting... appreciate his role and responsibilities... he wants to make sure our economy keeps moving up not crash due to the lack of office/high street activity.
I definitely agree that there has to a balance for how we work moving forward. Face to face office based interactions is still hugely important and will still be part of our working life. I for one just want the flexibility that I've very much enjoyed for the last 10 years at Citrix. Work in the office, work on the move, work from home... I've been able to take my boys to school, my child's first few weeks of reception which I would of missed completely if I'd been in a daily grind of commuting to work.
It's all about balance and realistically we all miss that time with our colleagues, so i suspect a more hybrid model for working will be adopted... especially if something like this happens again, no business wants to caught short but instead react quickly to these types of global events and be better prepared for remote working if called upon.
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Retired Emergency Management & Business Continuity practitioner. Qualified Trainer & Assessor
Personally, working from home has presented some challenges. When we purchased our home, the need to work from it never featured in the equation, so to be suddenly thrust into this situation last year was a real challenge. I have had to constantly fend off my manager's well intentioned concerns over my work environment, until I had to firmly, but politely point out that nothing was going to change and the conversation was now becoming an irritant, rather than helpful. Working from home I miss the office atmosphere that a close-knit team like ours has. Daily morning Teams video calls help, but they don't cut it quite the same as being together in the same place. What I don't miss is the 60 mile round trip commute each day - it will be a bind if/when we have to return to that, but the compensation will be working with a team who support one another in every way, and make working a pleasure not a chore.