Speaking at the FTAdviser Smarter Business Forum this week (June 29), Schroders Personal Wealth chief executive officer Mark Duckworth and M&G managing director David Montgomery discussed some of the challenges of working from home for businesses and how the firms have coped.
The global pandemic has seen a shift in the way people work and has in many ways accelerated the use of the technology across the industry.
However, as remote working becomes more prominent, the question was raised around how firms can keep employees motivated and focused on the job at hand.
Duckworth said: “The first thing is to remember the purpose of why we exist, such as the skills that we all possess are one that can change clients' lives. It's the thing that gets you out of bed every morning.
“The use of technology has been forced and I think that we wouldn’t have been here for five years if it wasn’t for the pandemic. But it's not just that conversation internally, or externally with clients to work on, it's about connecting with each other.”
He added: “Often the office space was used to think things through, to share problems, challenges and once we'd done that, we went away and felt we’d learnt something.
“We've got to try new technology in that way too and just be very conscious of the isolation that we may all have from being isolated from work colleagues and I think we can use technology to work together internally.”
Likewise Montgomery outlined some of the areas of focus at his firm.
He explained at the start of the pandemic M&G’s initial reaction was to focus on how to keep the business operating during that period of time.
However, that "quickly shifted into supporting people and new ways of working.
“So whether that was getting the right kit, or the desks or chairs that people needed to be able to work from home - this became massively important.
“It was about keeping the communication going with people and I think communication certainly increased during this period of time as we checked in with employees and made sure they were okay.
"I think that was hugely important as part of motivating them to keep them going through this.”
Montgomery explained that for M&G it was a “sharp focus” to motivate staff as it acquired a business during the pandemic and all transactions and conversations were via teams or Zoom.
He said: “We had to bring 350 new employees into our business so it was how we connected with them, how we made them feel part of the business and so you have to find new ways of doing things like that.”
Face to face versus virtual
Discussing how firms can operate in this new ‘digital world’ while still developing and maintaining their personal relationships, Montgomery outlined how he thinks advisers can get the right balance.
“We were already in a space where video advice and the use of tech was already starting to be adopted,” he said.
“There was obviously a massive acceleration of that and within our own advice business, we're starting to see a shift as 75 per cent of our business or database is still being done on digital video tech and not face to face.
But he does not think work processes will go "completely digital". "The great thing is that the technology and the new ways of working have been developed and been embraced to a level where we have that flexibility now.
“That is what we’ll see moving forward and certainly more adoption of it but finding that right balance between what an adviser wants and what a client wants out of that relationship.”
Duckworth agreed as he said with technology it was more about enhancing the client experience, “automating the things that are quite frictional when we’re building that relationship with the client."
“For me, I think that the new trends will be gamification, that creates interactivity and an enhanced experience because I think sometimes our role, especially via technology, can seem a little dry, so enhancing that given immediate feedback in enhancing the experience and understanding as to why I'm going through the journey will become the dominant trend.
“It will sit back on how each firm and everybody thinks about managing data to nudge clients in the right way to take action, but it seems far more natural than perhaps we would have done historically.”
sonia.rach@ft.com
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