Business continuity
In this environment, some common concerns and themes include how to support employees to work effectively from home, maintaining robust and relevant technological infrastructure and platforms, and possible scenarios and strategies for a safe and successful reentry of employees into the physical workplace.
Supporting employees as they work from home
Firms have worked to ensure their people have the best setup possible for their home workspace, with some even shipping equipment to their employees. Others provided employees with a one-time payment to cover any unplanned expenses or personal equipment needs to support the transition to working from home. In addition, frequency and innovation around virtual communication and collaboration have increased, and there has been a focus on safeguarding employees’ mental health and well-being with additional communication and resources, such as meditation apps and flexibility in working conditions.
New York–based asset management and research firm AllianceBernstein has pivoted its focus from return-to-office planning to managing and working remotely. Strategies included putting together an engagement working group and developing tools to monitor, measure and manage the performance of the enterprise side of the business, as well as training managers on how to effectively manage people working remotely. The firm has even put together a “virtual camp” to engage the children of employees three mornings a week, with initiatives like magic shows and karate lessons.
Getting the technology right
As people and teams spend more time connecting, collaborating and working online, the importance of having the right infrastructure and end user platforms in place increased exponentially.
For instance, Jersey City–based investment management company Lord Abbett has seen a massive uptick in the use of digital tools, especially video conferencing platforms, during the pandemic. The firm stressed the importance of making sure all employees have the tools and equipment they need to succeed, and looking for ways to drive more virtual collaboration.
To maintain a consistent cadence of communications to maintain a sense of community, global financial services firm Barings launched a weekly newscast with their Chairman, CEO and President in an audio format in early March. In September, a video option was made available.
Some firms already had the infrastructure to support mass remote working from home, thanks to past events that prompted improvements to their VPN (Virtual Private Network) and BDI (Business Data Infrastructure), and robust crisis management plans. AllianceBernstein, for example, had shifted to large-scale remote working environments as a result of the fallout of Hurricane Sandy in Northeast U.S. in 2012.
Others realized they needed to strengthen their bandwidth to optimize working from home and acted quickly. Firms turned to dashboards showing leading and lagging indicators for measures like transactional volume and pricing times, which helped some companies gauge performance and feel confident that continuity is in hand.
Reentry planning: the practicalities
While it looks like working from home is here to stay for now, many firms have dedicated reentry planning teams considering every single aspect of the office space in preparation for having people return to the physical workplace.
Some firms plan to reintroduce employees to the office in teams for week- or fortnight-long shifts. Others are contemplating waves, where team members are reintroduced in subgroups and spend different weeks in the office, in order to protect employees — and operations — from outbreaks. Several also expect to need less office space post-COVID-19.
They are also thinking about everything from temperature screening, health declaration forms and automation of everything that can possibly be automated to social distancing, directional markers on floors and increased sanitizing of the office space. Of course, firms are also looking at compulsory masks while moving around in buildings, and caps on the number of employees who can be in the office at any one time.
Ensuring employees remain mindful of colleagues’ comfort levels in the office is also a major consideration for many firms. Actively encouraging people to ask about, have empathy for and respect colleagues’ meeting preferences is being done at several firms, with options for meeting via phone or video, at desks, in a socially distanced way in a meeting room, with or without masks on, and so on, are all on the table.
Flexibility, clearly documented plans and procedures, and nominating employees to oversee safety are other strategies the executives shared. For example, Des Moines, Iowa-based Principal Global Asset Management is currently working with a flexible, voluntary come-back policy. New York–based asset manager DWS Group has a comprehensive “playbook” for each of its offices that outlines the rules for that location and employees responsible for ensuring the space can accommodate people coming in safely.
The pandemic has driven a dramatic shift in remote work for many companies; it’s clear that they have risen to the occasion. Through careful planning, enabling employees to access the tools they need and a careful approach to reentry, firms can set themselves up for success in the near and longer term.
