How Lockdown has Changed Working From Home: Part II
We’re back with Part II!
This week we’re looking at how working from home affect your employees.
Flexibility and choice
Ahead of an interview for an office-based position, a property management candidate will have a fair idea of what they would like to achieve in terms of flexible working, perhaps because of childcare duties or simply to improve their quality of life. Perhaps they only attended the interview in the first place due to the possibility of being able to work from home.
Before the coronavirus crisis, property management employers were already more like to offer workplace flexibility. They knew that it helped to secure better candidates. Whilst many larger managing agents offer the flexibility of working from home (or from site), some insist on it, with PMs only venturing into HQ for important meetings.
Flexibility will be the key word here going forward. If you give candidates the choice, most will make the right decision for them and the business benefits accordingly.
Creativity, innovation and new ideas
Reading up for this blog, it was clear that many employers are concerned that their employees may end up working in silos (being French, this was a term that I had not come across before, so this link was helpful). I doubt there is anyone reading this who hasn’t used video conferencing yet, so you’ll know they generally work very well once the mute button has been mastered. Yet most of the time, employees are not on Zoom and they are working under their own steam. And when they ARE on Zoom, many find that virtual meetings are not as effective as sitting around a table, face to face, which is when the free-flowing creativity happens. Long term working from home policies may stifle innovation.
I guess this is why companies like Google and Facebook who need to be creative 24/7, have spent so much money on cool/fun office environments so new ideas are more like to flourish. These are tech companies that are not encouraging homeworking – they want their staff to be together, enjoying work, playing table tennis in their breaks, lunching in the roof garden or taking flat whites on a bean bag. They also create these spaces to attract new staff, but let’s not get too cynical.
As an side, an IT firm called Cloudflare, have attempted to encourage collaboration and creativity during lockdown by having an hour long slot where teams are present on a live video call but there is no agenda and everyone just continues with their work. However when someone wants to ask a colleague a question, they can put their heads above their metaphorical monitor and just go ahead and ask, just as they would do in the office. I understand that discussions are sparked off and collaboration thrives. Something to think about emulating.
Wellbeing
I will write more on this, as mental health is a subject close to my heart. Homeworking may equate to isolation and loneliness for some people so companies need to be aware one size does not fit all. My team and I manage on-site staff throughout London and the south east, and some of them are lone workers – so it’s important that they are visited regularly, not just to see how they are performing but how they are feeling.
In an office environment, a sensitive and receptive line manager will notice if an employee is upset or distracted and can do something about it there and then. If a homeworker suffers a personal problem in their life, they may choose to keep it entirely to themselves and their boss would be oblivious. It cannot be healthy to have staff out of sight and out of mind. Companies need to think about how they can reduce the risk of homeworking leading to disheartened or even depressed staff.
Co-working environments
Occasionally, I meet clients in co-working spaces. Before the lockdown, I was given a tour of LABS in Holborn. There was a large communal area with plenty of power sockets, state of the art coffee machines and a range of seating/table options. The space has quiet booths and glassed off office space of all shapes and sizes. The design, aesthetics and acoustics of the space were very welcoming. Fast forward to lockdown and places like LABS are of course shut. But when they reopen, I suspect they will become even more popular. Space like this creates a separation from home life yet the environment is more home-like than any office I’ve ever been in. Could a property manager successfully work from LABS or a WeWork co-working spaces? They already do and I foresee much more of this.
Live-work spaces
I hear it’s a thing in Holland where some homes also double-up as offices - but with a difference. There are separate front doors to enter the working and living space respectively. I can’t see that catching on in London but over time, we will see more innovative live-work spaces, especially if homeworking gains in popularity and house prices continue to rise and become ever more unaffordable. This is an interesting article on inspiring live-work spaces, although I am not sure I would want to work 2 metres off the ground.
Cledor provides on-site staff for long leasehold blocks, commercial, retail and also for build to rent operators. It’s in the BTR sector that I suspect we’ll see working space within the apartment AND in communal areas designed-in specifically for a homeworking workforce.
Work from anywhere?
It’s no longer a stretch to consider that full time homeworking property managers may decide to work from another country altogether! Imagine taking a longer break than normal – say a month in Spain – without having to book annual leave and working throughout. You have a fast internet connection, access to your company’s database, you can talk to your clients over wifi. OK, so in that month you would have to delegate site visits to someone else but it’s doable, right?
I ran this past a global mobility manager who thought it was a great idea… except for tax, social security, immigration, work permit and health care issues that will arise. In all seriousness, if companies can find a legal and low-cost way to allow their staff to work from anywhere in the world, why not?
At the time of writing, various states in Europe and beyond have temporarily hosted foreign nationals who cannot return to their home – yet they need to continue to work. If this can be done temporarily, governments and corporations can find a way of making this a legitimate practice.
Does all this mean a silver lining to the Coronavirus crisis?
Covid-19 has caused death, grief, economic hardship and affected the world in other ways that we cannot conceive at this moment. Many businesses are focussing on surviving before they can thrive again, and in our industry, this is also true. Big changes to how millions of us work are inevitable, and in my opinion, homeworking will become an integral part of our lives, directly as a consequent of the forced lockdown. It’s how homeworking is implemented that will determine its successful application (or not), and I do regard this to be a silver lining which heralds a very exciting time to be in our sector.
------------
Whether it’s residential leasehold, build-to-rent (BTR) or commercial, Cledor provides on-site staff for landlords and managing agents.
Nick Regnier, Cledor Founder and Managing Director
A: Boris Johnson!