Arguably one of the key positives from the pandemic has been the ease with which most service-based personnel have transitioned from the office to their own home. While the technology has been around for years it has taken a serious event to prove that working from a desk in your own front room can be just as effective as working from the same desk in an office. And while some organizations were initially caught on the hop, for the vast majority this has now simply become routine.

But beyond the numerous anecdotes what are the hard facts. How smooth has the transition been in reality? Is productivity up or down, and has it fluctuated over time? And how are the staff themselves coping? Many seem perfectly pleased to lose the commute and the chatter of the office while others are struggling to motivate themselves in a world of endless on-screen conversations but no face-to-face engagement and ‘water cooler’ moments. And maybe the biggest question: how to most effectively organize and manage staff who are permanently out of the office and, while entirely willing, may be struggling to stay productive?

The stakes are high with all these issues. Because if personnel can productively work from home over long periods then this has huge ramifications for not only the future of the office, but also for the back-up office and business continuity strategies in general.

To help you to draw your own conclusions, Continuity Logic has assembled a team of three acknowledged leaders in their fields.

Charley Newnham, Enterprise Resilience Lead, PwC will explore the key lessons learned by business sector. This will include an appraisal of initial responses, how local lockdowns and agile measures in general are being handled, plans for returning to work, and a look ahead to what we can expect to see in 2021.

Dr Aarti Anhal, Positive Psychology Practitioner & Coach, before nine will then explore the human side of home working. She will look at what is gained and lost through home working, how different people have coped, and whether there is a pattern to those who are happy to be permanently at home and those who are not. She will conclude with her own recommendations for better managing the wellbeing, productivity, and optimal performance of home-based staff.

Stella Nunn, Director, Operational Resilience, PwC will finally look at this from the perspective of her work with financial services organizations. In particular, the impact of the pandemic and home working on the Bank of England regulatory timeline. She will revisit the key regulatory topics of business services, impact tolerance and stress testing, and ask where should firms now be in terms of progress.

Finally, please note. Our understanding of home working continues to grow. Consequently, all three speakers will be presenting their thinking as it stands at the date of the event – October 15, 2020. They will not be presenting old news. This means that the agenda may subtly change from that published here.

Registration is open here