To the question around when, or if, the ‘return to work’ happens – made yet more uncertain by the Omicron variant of covid – another phenomenon is ‘the great resignation’, of workers who have taken a new direction in their careers. How does this affect the security industry? Mark Rowe considers.
The medical and security emergency response contractor International SOS held a webinar this morning about a survey of risk managers around employee safety and business travel, and gave their business security and other ‘risk outlook‘ predictions for 2022. That the event was held online is itself a sign of how the pandemic has made doing things remotely so much more normal, accelerating a trend that may have happened far more gradually but for covid.
Some lines of work – healthcare, museums, sport – cannot very well be done remotely. Yet if banks, government departments and call centres generally no longer have offices, and instead do hybrid or home working, where does that leave security and other facilities management services? If a bank or insurance company no longer needs any office, or much less space, presumably that means less demand for guarding services, concierges, coffee retailers; and the whole urban geography of city centres could be convulsed.
A clue to how employees will drive change came towards the end of the webinar, when Elizabeth Linden, director of real estate and facilities at Finastra spoke. That’s a fintech firm, which has offices in Europe, APAC and the Americas. She described how the firm now does ‘two plus two’; two days in the office, two days working otherwise, and a flexible day; this was what most employees had wanted. As she said, the workplace has become ‘so much broader’: someone can work from home, or an office, or while travelling. Although a few in the International SOS survey doubted that business travel and office working would ever return to pre-covid.
People want, she said, a compelling reason to return to the office; a reason that the company crafted. That has meant a re-configuring of the office physically; spaces for well-being; and team days and social events. While she did not mention security, physical or cyber, that would underpin what she said about employees wanting to be trusted, ‘to work anywhere and everywhere’. Significantly, she anticipated that covid (and its social effects) would be around for a few years yet: “I don’t see a return to five days in the office at all.”
That does make it difficult as she acknowledged to assure people around their safety (physical) and well-being (mental).
As for recruitment, she made an important point: that recruitment did not stand still during covid: “We were still hiring, we hired a significant amount of people.” That has required the fintech to take account of how it’s hard for young people towards the beginning of their career to do networking over Zoom. Managers later on in their careers, thus, have a responsibility to mentor, and coach, those new hires, she suggested.
Professional Security can think of conversations with security people that inform these points. Elizabeth Linden spoke of employees wanting to be trusted to have autonomy, to deliver on outcomes, rather than have to abide by ‘presenteeism’ – that is, be seen to be present at an office desk until late. That chimes with a conversation with the founder of a security consultancy that has several workers, that has downsized its office. It still has an office; but its staff also do their work at home or on the road or with a client. So long as a task is done, the MD doesn’t mind when or where it’s done.
As for the ‘great resignation’, while not denying there is such a thing, young workers in particular may change job often, regardless of the pandemic, within and into and out of the security sector. Other factors – the expense of living in London, changing personal circumstances with partners – carry on regardless of covid. Young people looking to develop their career weigh up whether to move to gain experience or more money, get a better work-life balance, whether to see more of the world.
For International SOS’ five predictions for 2022 visit https://www.internationalsos.com/risk-outlook.
Picture by Mark Rowe; Bristol city centre.
