Although many of us probably had some sort of exposure to remote working prior to March 2020, a sudden move to doing so on a fulltime basis was unlikely to have been one of our New Year’s resolutions. As the Pandemic roars on without any clear end in sight, the same can be said of these remote working arrangements that have been foisted upon many of us. The impacts and implications of this “new normal”, to coin that annoying neologism, are many and its effects can be felt in everything from our family life to data security in the workplace. There are positive and negative aspects to this but there also things we need to consider should the world of work remain forever changed. Data privacy and cyber protection are important at the best of times within trading and investment firms but the confidential nature of investment compliance only serves to further exacerbate the typical challenges posed by remote working; from shredding sensitive documents if they are no longer needed to recording phone conversations and keeping systems cyber protected, all whilst dealing with the ups and downs of working from your kitchen table, possibly alongside small children who are dealing with the ups and downs of remote school attendance! On a related note, having to work from a kitchen table is another challenge, should employers consider housing subsidies to facilitate house renovations/extensions where employees do not have adequate space to work from home? And what about any new compliance risks created by working remotely? Brokers have started to offer virtual wine tasting and concert streaming in lieu of being able to offer tickets, do gifts and entertainment policies need to be updated accordingly? Employers are also affected of course. Leaving office spaces vacant for an extended period is an additional compliance risk. Having the infrastructure in place to facilitate remote working is a must which not all employers would have been prepared for. The list goes on and on. In the interest of brevity, I’ll focus on just some of the challenges but of course it would be remiss of me to ignore the attractions and benefits to remote working. From lowered business expenses and better disaster preparedness for employers to increased flexibility and less commuting for employees with even the environment benefitting from a reduced carbon footprint……perhaps being able to work from home on a long-term basis is the opportunity many of us have been waiting for?
If we start with one of the weightier issues, that of data protection and cyber security. Anecdotal horror stories abound of people struggling with this from the confines of their home. One such example I recently came across was where an employee left their desktop unlocked whilst he went for a break. In his absence, his young son decided to download and play a video game on his father’s laptop. The employee’s wife, upon first discovering this and finding it comical, decided to take and upload screenshots of her husband’s laptop home screen, evidencing the downloaded game, to social media. In this instance nothing confidential was exposed but to say this was a ‘close call’ would be an understatement. In most instances, work computers have a lot of valuable and sensitive information on them. Leaving your computer unlocked while you’re away from your desk leaves all of that sensitive information available to whomever walks past or is in the vicinity. Although there is unlikely to be malicious intent from immediate family members whilst working from home, risks still remain as highlighted by my anecdotal example. Companies need to continue to reaffirm that practices such as locking your workstation whilst away from your desk continue to apply even when working from home.
A complication to reinforcing a desktop locking policy is that enforcement is much easier in the confines of an office than in the makeshift workspace of a chaotic family kitchen. Should companies consider housing subsidies as a means of support for employees to facilitate the creation of a suitable office environment at home? Anyone working in investment compliance will require a minimum of 2 computer screens with one reserved for monitoring trading activity. A fast and stable internet connection is a minimum but what of a desk and an office chair? Should these expenses be borne solely by the employee? Employers may argue that the flexibility offered by remote working affords employees opportunities to more than offset the costs of adapting homes to being office-ready. Aside from the obvious reduction in commuting costs, as the proximity of your home to the office needs no longer be considered a significant factor when choosing where to live, then residing in areas with a more reasonable cost of living would seem a no-brainer.
COVID-19 is upending the property market, with many workers fleeing the cities for the comparative wide open spaces of suburbia. When taken in conjunction with the massive increase in remote working, how will this affect where people choose to live? Mark Zuckerberg has recently promised that at least half of Facebook’s 50,000 employees will be working from home by 2030, quite the reversal when you consider that only 5 years ago Facebook began offering $10,000 bonuses to employees to live in close proximity to their Silicon Valley headquarters. Jack Dorsey of Twitter recently announced that all Twitter employees can work from wherever they like, even once offices start to reopen. After years of encouraging employees to stay as close to the office as possible and to stay ‘on-site’ for as long as possible through the creation of amenity-filled campus-like office environments, are we now seeing a realization by technology companies that employees can be just as productive, if not more so, whilst working from home? What of the more traditional industries? Several of the US’ largest financial institutions, such as UBS, Barclays and JP Morgan Chase, have acknowledged that at least part of their workforce would remain remote even after the pandemic subsides. A PwC survey conducted in June 2020 found that most office workers (83%) want to work from home at least one day a week, and half of employers (55%) anticipate that most of their workers will do so long after COVID-19 is not a concern. The aforementioned trend in Americans fleeing large urban sprawls for cheaper locations has been measured by Redfin using an ‘inflow’ methodology which means they look at the number of people looking to move-in minus the number of people looking to leave. Cities such as Santa Barbara, California; Louisville, Kentucky; and Buffalo, New York are all benefitting with Santa Barbara experiencing an increase in net inflow of 124% in Q3 of this year when compared with the same period in 2020. Louisville and Buffalo each saw 113% and 107% increases respectively. More flexibility in terms of where we live can only be a good thing when it comes to things like our bank balance and how much of our lives we spend just travelling back and forth from our place of work.
What of the impact on human relationships? I was speaking with a friend of mine in Ireland recently, via video call of course; upon him divulging that he and his wife sat side by side whilst working from home, I asked him how that was going for him, he just smiled and admitted that there were good days and bad days (the feeling was mutual I’m sure). Having children learn and parents work all under the one roof is bound to put a strain on even the most stalwartly of families. As stressful as the daily commute to the office was for many in a pre-COVID world, it offered time away from the home and a broader variety of interpersonal interactions largely absent for many of us for as long as the pandemic lasts. On the flipside, as a parent of very young children I barely saw my children when I was commuting as by the time I would arrive home it was almost their bedtime. I’m able to see them a lot more now and I’m all the happier for it. Another psychological implication to be mindful of when working remotely is being able to draw that line between where work ends and homelife begins. As one colleague told me, although he can work any day of the week and at any time, he always logs off on Friday night and treats Saturday and Sunday as sacred, family time. In his words, he wouldn’t otherwise know if he was living in the office or working from home……and yes I have stolen his wisdom as the title of my article.
Is there any specific impact to investment compliance? Certainly some of the challenges already mentioned such as the need to ensure confidentiality when actively monitoring trading activity are heightened even further when conducted from the confines of the family home. The technological demands imposed by typically data-hungry Order Management Systems (“OMS”) should also not be underestimated, from the need to have high-speed internet to having more than one computer screen.
A truly mixed bag of impacts I think you’ll agree! Let’s finish off with a positive one though……. a study conducted in March and April of this year by OnePoll in conjunction with GoTo and LogMeIn found that over 75% feel guilty about the adverse impact their commute has on the environment. Aside from a reduction in emissions and greenhouse gases from vehicles, the energy needed to power large office buildings is greatly reduced while we work from home, as are consumables such as ink cartridges and disposable coffee cups. This is to a certain extent offset by the corresponding increase in energy consumption as a result of people working from home but it is commonly accepted that the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. Once employers and employees alike overcome the initial logistical and psychological adjustments needed to adapt to this new way of working, it’s difficult to see this as being anything but a positive development in peoples’ lives. To quote German physicist Georg Lichtenberg, “I cannot say whether things will get better if we change; what I can say is they must change if they are to get better.”