Episode 1: Remote Working
Review and Renew: The Jersey Business Podcast
Tuesday, 9 February 2021 - 30 minutes
Welcome to Review and Renew, a brand-new series of podcasts brought to you by Jersey Business. We’ll discuss how we can do business better, how we can achieve our goals, and make our businesses more resilient. In each episode, we’ll be talking about one aspect of business today, drawing on the knowledge and expertise of local business leaders.
In this episode, we are going to find out more about remote working – something we have all become used to due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Joining us is Richard Plaster and David Bailey.
Richard is an Executive Director at Law at Work, with more than 30 years’ experience in HR-related issues. As a previous Chair of the Jersey Skills Board and the Employment Forum, he brings considerable experience to the conversation of both the public and private sector.
David is currently the Chief Operating Officer at RBC and is responsible for the implementation and execution of strategy for the wealth management business in the British Isles. He has held senior roles in a broad variety of businesses, primarily in the financial services sector.
We hope you enjoy this recording and find the series informative and inspiring.
Would you like to refer back to any of the questions? For ease, below are the key questions and time stamps.
1. What should we actually call how we are working now? With variations including flexible, remote, distributed, and hybrid – do they all mean the same thing or is there a difference? – 1:25
2. What role do you think corporate culture has played in the transition to these new ways of working? – 3:15
3. Rightly, perhaps, the focus has been very much on how staff are handling these changes. But what about managers and senior executives, what training and support do we need to think about for them? – 5:35
4. Businesses have had to introduce new communication systems and consider the processes needed to ensure they are effectively used. What should businesses be thinking about in terms of the processes and culture of this new way of communicating with their people? – 7:50
5. In the early stages of lockdown last year, a lot of businesses were worried about the productivity of their staff. In your experience, what has happened to productivity? How do we maintain productivity? And how do we get the best from our people? – 10:00
6. Essential to this is feedback, and presumably it needs to be two-way? – 12:35
7. What are the benefits of remote working that have been borne out of the last year? – 14:35
8. Workplaces may become more inclusive as a result of the switch to remote working due to the COVID-19 pandemic. How do you see this happening? – 16:00
9. Can the way businesses behaved and adapted during the pandemic affect their ability to retain or recruit talent in the future? – 18:55
10. It’s not just our people that we need to think about. There are other operational things that we need to consider, such as health and safety and data security. What advice do you have around those areas? – 20:05
11. Not everyone does want to work from home, so what are the considerations there? – 23:25
12. What is your top piece of advice to businesses trying to deal with the challenges of a very fast-changing environment? – 28:00
For further support, advice, and useful resources, visit the Jersey Business website.
Listen to the other podcasts in this series on the Jersey Business website, through Channel 103, Spotify, or on Apple Podcasts.
