Lee Wrall is the sales and marketing director at Manchester-based Microsoft partner Everything Tech and said companies had to do more than just send staff home to work with no help.
鈥淎 lot of people are sending their workforce home and expect them to be able to work from home without any challenges,鈥� he said. 鈥淚 still don鈥檛 think enough companies are putting in enough consideration on how these people are working.
鈥淓very Zoom or Teams call I go on I still see people working from their couch and from their kitchen table and that can鈥檛 be good. From a legal perspective I鈥檓 convinced there will be a raft of neck injury claims coming up after this.
鈥淎t what point do employees say to their employers 鈥榶ou need to pay for my internet connection because 70 per cent of the use of is for work?鈥欌��
Wrall also said there had been a spike in phishing attacks on people working from home.
鈥淲e do quite a lot of cyber security awareness training,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he stats have been astonishing. It鈥檚 about constant awareness. You鈥檝e got to drill it into people every day.鈥�
Sarah McDowell is the owner of The Leader Centre and advises senior business leaders. She said businesses need to focus on boosting productivity.
鈥淚f we look back at the last decade face-to-face working hasn鈥檛 made us any more productive,鈥� she said.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 know any senior people who aren鈥檛 at full capacity all of the time but we haven鈥檛 managed to get any more productive. I think part of the problem has been the way we鈥檝e worked face-to-face.
鈥淪enior people have become very busy and they鈥檝e become something of a bottleneck because they physically can鈥檛 do more. We now have this opportunity to say 鈥榟ow do we do things differently?鈥�
鈥淲hen we鈥檙e most successful is not when we do more but when we get an extra 5,10, 50 or 100 people to contribute more. If we get the set-up right you鈥檒l find people are more productive when they work remotely.
鈥淎s a nation we鈥檝e become obsessed on the amount of time people spend in a business and ultimately that doesn鈥檛 matter a jot if the results are not being delivered. I talk about managing results and not people.鈥�
Tracey Threlfall is the managing director for AON in the North and said Covid has changed the way we work forever.
鈥淚鈥檝e always been an advocate of output,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not about how many hours you work in the office. I think the biggest challenge with my team across the North is stopping them working too many hours because they鈥檝e converted their commute time into extra hours.
鈥淭he IT has been pretty good. We gave individuals a budget so they were comfortable at home. We鈥檝e paid for things like boosters and whatever was best for them.鈥�
Before Covid Threlfall regularly spent four hours a day on the road covering the North and has enjoyed working from home.
鈥淚 was doing 22,000 miles a year before lockdown,鈥� she said.
鈥淭he company car I was going to invest in is now a garden office. That鈥檚 what I鈥檝e spent the money on and I鈥檓 not going back. I think the future will be a hybrid model.鈥�
Architect Duncan Dalzel-Job is a WfH design specialist at Rethink Home Working and said things like lighting, temperature and layout were critical to working from home effectively.
鈥淚 think there are only certain companies who realise how important the wider home working environment is,鈥� he said.
鈥淣oise is a classic problem. Companies are becoming more aware of it. One thing I鈥檝e seen in Germany is they鈥檙e beginning to legislate about working from home. Remote working is here to stay.
Heather Parsons is the owner of The ENERGYBODi Sensation and has seen an increase in work-related injuries caused by people working from home.
鈥淭ech neck is definitely becoming more prominent,鈥� she said.
鈥淎 good posture isn鈥檛 a static posture. A good posture is a moving posture. One of the things we鈥檙e recommending is the big wobble cushion.鈥�
Warren Middleton is the managing partner at KPMG in Manchester, where the average age of their 1,250 staff is 27. He said protecting staff鈥檚 mental health was really important.
鈥淢ore and more of these (young) people are living back at home,鈥� he said.
鈥淥ccupancy rates of flats in Manchester are down as people have moved back in with their parents. He said KPMG had carried out additional training and testing around cyber security and warned companies not to advertise when senior members of staff go down with Covid because they could be targeted by cyber criminals.
Neil Rogerson is a client relationship manager of recruitment firm Robert Walters and said after a difficult April business bounced back in May, June and July with a lot of senior recruitment taking place.
However he said one impact of working from home was that it was harder for new hires to create an 鈥榚motional connection鈥� with a company when they weren鈥檛 in the office.
Ceri Henfrey is the head of operations at outsourced communications provider Moneypenny, which handles 55,000 client interactions a day.
In 2018 the company invested 拢15m in a new HQ in Wrexham, complete with treehouse meeting room, pub, sun terrace and subsidised restaurant.
The office was designed to be the 鈥渉appiest workplace in the UK鈥� and Henfrey said the movement to working from home had been a steep learning curve as they looked to protect the company鈥檚 culture.
James Hall is the business development manager of 02 franchise MID Communications and praised the leadership of CEO Danny Simpson during the pandemic. 鈥淲e were early adopters of things like Microsoft Teams,鈥� he said.
鈥淎s a business Danny is all about the people. He makes sure every team member has everything they need and protects their mental health.鈥�
The other speakers were Tracey Wood, head of business development at Rochdale鈥檚 Hopwood Hall; Sue Hutchinson, partner at accountants Beever and Struthers; and Karen Bexley, founder and partner at law firm Bexley Beaumont, which stays in touch with staff through walking meetings.