The coronavirus pandemic is the second major crisis I‘ve worked through in my career. The first was the Financial Crisis of 2007/2008 and in many ways, they couldn’t be more different. Whilst their effects on the economy were both devasting, the approach of firms in how they approached them, I feel, couldn’t be more different.
Despite occurring only 13 years apart, we do live in a very different world from 2007. The iPhone was first launched in June 2007, and its effect on the world has been profound. According in Statistica, LinkedIn broke through 50 million users in late 2009, and today LinkedIn has 756 million users. I use these figures to highlight how large a part of our lives’ technology has become, and as a reminder of conditions in 2007. I also think the workplace has change enormously too. In fact, changes in the workplace have been gathering speed at pace over the last five years. Five years ago, female candidates never asked me about the diversity of leadership teams, now I’m rightly asked regularly. Mental health wasn’t as prominent in the thinking of governments or employers as it is today either. We also have a generation still in the workplace, who, like me, have now worked through two significant crises. All of these factors have contributed to how firms have approached their business communications over the last 18 months, and I suspect what we’ve learnt during the COVID period will influence business communications for years to come.
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The pandemic also challenged how leaders communicate with their teams who were now not in the office, but displaced across the country (or countries, in some cases), as working from home was mandated by many governments. They could no longer see how someone was feeling. They could no longer build culture in the office. They could no longer brainstorm in person. The office has been the centre of work life for generations, and literally overnight it wasn’t. At the start of the pandemic, the overriding concern of most leaders was for the safety of their teams. This is still the case, but as the crisis has evolved, focus has shifted to addressing many of the issues around culture, collaboration, and mental health. From online quizzes and virtual pub trips, to increasing a sense of belonging and online training, many firms found that teams who perhaps never normally met each other due to geographical constraints, were more connected as video meetings were widely adopted. I also feel that high quality management teams have put more work into increasing their communication with colleagues and improving transparency.
I feel we are undoubtedly moving to a world of hybrid working where managers will rarely be able to give town hall speeches to large crowds in person. However, many of the lessons of increased communication, increased care, and training will be kept by many.
About Fram Search
Established in 2010 by Simon Roderick, a recruiter with 20 years City recruitment experience, Fram Search is a specialist financial services recruitment consultancy. We focus on permanent and interim recruitment in the UK & internationally.
We provide high quality contingent and retained recruitment to boutiques and global brands. We have long established relationships and access to deep talent pools. Fram takes a highly consultative approach, and we have a quality over quantity ethos. We are proud that our contingent fill rate is nearly three the industry average and we augment our retained search methodology with rigorous psychometric testing. Champions of diversity & inclusion, all staff have undertaken unconscious bias training.
Please contact us on 01525 864 372 / [email protected] to learn more.
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