The COVID Diaries: SSA 4

The following interview is with a funding executive from an issuer in the supranational, sovereign and agency sector. It was conducted on 27 May 2020.

Does your business have a timeline for returning to office working – and are you looking forward to it?

Our firm is making preparations for a gradual return to the office with around 10 per cent of staff allowed to work in the building from early-to-mid June on a voluntary basis. However, given the fluid situation it is likely that the majority of personnel will continue to work from home for the foreseeable future.

While it has been demonstrated that we can continue doing business from home – arguably, it feels like we have done more business from the confines of our home than the first few months of the year in the office! – there is the missing social interaction that can only really be achieved when the whole team is working together in the office. We are using Microsoft Teams and Zoom but technology does have its limitations!

Are you more or less optimistic about the crisis than you were during the early acceleration period of moving to home working and adding social distancing measures?

Optimism would not be the word I’d use to describe the crisis, but certainly we have found some sort of equilibrium with remote working and managing our personal lives under the same roof.

We have experience of working from home for short periods of time so it was a case of having everyone work remotely at the same time to which we had rapidly to adjust.

The challenge for me has really been trying to work while occupying the children and keeping up with their online learning – which in itself is no substitute for actual schooling.

“Society has already radically transformed to adapt to the current measures and, even if there were a magic bullet in the form of a vaccine, there are many lessons we have learned over the past few weeks and months that will permanently guide our future actions.”

Do you subscribe to the view that this crisis will radically reshape our society? What do you think will change and what areas that some might think will change will actually revert to previous norms?

I don’t think many people would subscribe to the view that everything will return to pre-crisis norms. Society has already radically transformed to adapt to the current measures and, even if there were a magic bullet in the form of a vaccine, there are many lessons we have learned over the past few weeks and months that will permanently guide our future actions.

For example, we were already toying with work from home arrangements before the crisis emerged but, going forward, one would think that expanding such measures makes good sense from a business continuity standpoint.

When do you think you will next get on a plane? Are you looking forward to or dreading travelling again – for business and leisure?

Most of us probably miss getting on a plane and jetting off somewhere for a change of scenery. The fact of the matter, however, is that without a vaccine travelling on a plane has limited appeal while health concerns abound and there are travel restrictions and quarantine measures aplenty. We have already cancelled our summer holiday plans abroad and don’t expect to be going anywhere internationally this year – for pleasure at least.

What are you most looking forward to being able to do again, as restrictions ease in the coming weeks and months?

Funnily enough, it’s the simple things that one misses most. Being able to go to the park with our kids tops my list of things I’d like to do first once our lockdown is relaxed further. Then, being able to leave the confines of our village with the children and perhaps drive down to the beach would be next.

Sending the kids to school and interacting with our friends would be ideal. But with social distancing measures likely to remain in place post-lockdown, I see that being way down the list of things that are likely to be eased for us here.

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