Case Studies & Research
The nature of work in Financial Services is changing. COVID-19 forced an experiment in remote work, speeding up a transition to a working environment all but guaranteed as the field of finance merges with the field of technology. Much can be learned about how to take advantage of this shift.
Benefits for employers include access to a significantly wider talent pool and the opportunity to reduce costs like rent and in-office perks. Employees enjoy the ability to be more selective of the teams and projects they work on, in addition to having more time with their families and the ability to fit work alongside other life obligations that would be difficult in an office environment. Research shows wide support for this working model from both the employer's and employee's perspectives, especially in knowledge work fields. Companies willing to take advantage of this can shape competitive advantages that promote success among their peers.
We aim to provide research and advice to help both employers and employees make this transition as seamless as possible.
(Reuters) NEW YORK, Sept 30 - Accounting and consulting firm PwC told Reuters on Thursday it will allow all its 40,000 U.S. client services employees to work virtually and live anywhere they want in perpetuity, making it one of the biggest employers to embrace permanent remote work.
(Price Waterhouse Coopers) Many financial services employees have been working from home for months since the pandemic disrupted normal operations across the industry. Conversations are now starting about what a return to the workplace might look like. The truth is nobody knows what a return will look like and there's a growing recognition that normal ways of working will need to be revisited.
(CFO Magazine) The pandemic forced a grand work-from-home experiment on finance. But is an all-remote team really the future?
(McKinsey & Co) Hybrid models of remote work are likely to persist in the wake of the pandemic, mostly for a highly educated, well-paid minority of the workforce.
(McKinsey & Co) Companies are weighing permanent shifts to remote working. For general and administrative (G&A) functions, such arrangements offer advantages—and drawbacks. To find the right model, let form follow function.
(Forbes) It’s fair to say that the financial industry navigated pandemic-related lockdowns over the last year surprisingly well. Markets performed strongly — the Dow Jones is up over 30% in the past year, for instance — and banks saw record profits. It’s candidly surprising that an industry known for its strong office culture thrived while apart, but then again, if there is a universal business lesson from the pandemic, it’s the degree to which collaboration and communications software empowers remote work.
(CNBC) If you’re a typical office worker, you’ve gotten a taste of working from home over the last two years of the pandemic. But as some businesses return to offices, you might want to move on to a company that’s offering remote work permanently.
(S&P Global) By using the frequency of online communication between co-workers as a proxy for collaboration, we developed a hybrid office/remote model that allows employees to safely return to the office by minimizing office occupancy rate while maximizing collaboration opportunities and in-person interactions. This model achieves an approximate 50% improvement on 3 days in-person interaction compared to random scheduling when at the office and offers 80% of the critical in-person interactions throughout the week compared to the pre-COVID era’s office-only model.
(Ragan's Workplace Wellness) The company rolled out a comprehensive and consistent global wellness strategy for 22,000 employees across 32 countries in just seven weeks.
(Accenture) The pandemic changed everything, making remote work a necessity rather than an option. While employees dealt with significant challenges in making the transition (including finding suitable schooling and/or childcare solutions) many have embraced working from home. As many as 30% have said they would quit if they had to return to working in an office after the pandemic, and 80% expect to work from home at least three days per week. Moreover, according to a survey by the Institute for Corporate Productivity, 50% of respondents said they planned to expand flexible work arrangements in the future. Finance, in particular, is positioned to thrive in a remote model. Evidence shows that traditional in-person activities like monthly close went smoothly for many companies despite working from home. In many instances, the close went even better than expected due to the enforcement of materiality thresholds and diligent communications.
(Arc Dev) When it comes to the adoption of remote work by some of the biggest names in the tech world, DHH’s initial reaction was “finally!” There’s a lot of inertia to rolling out change in big companies, but this is also a unique chance for these companies to experiment with new ways of working. Indeed, according to DHH, this sudden adoption of remote work has caused a many of people to realize that their previous misconceptions of remote work are actually false.
(NB Forum) On 12 August, we were honored to host a webinar with Jason Fried, the co-founder and CEO of Basecamp. During the webinar, Fried dived deeper into the topic of remote working with Raymond Hofmann, a management and organization designer. The two discussed issues such as benefits and pitfalls of remote working, productivity, and collaboration in a remote setting, and also shared views about working culture when working remotely.
(CNBC) Office workers around the country are still working remotely or in a hybrid setup as the pandemic enters its third year. In that time, companies from Twitter to PwC to Robinhood have said they’ll let people continue working from home even after the risks of Covid-19 subside.