Page 12 - Newcom

YOUR GUIDE TO SALES AND FINANCIAL PLANNING
BUILDING YOUR BUSINESS
PAGES 12-15 l INVESTMENT EXECUTIVE l SEPTEMBER 2020
INSIDE THIS SECTION
OFFICE SPACE
VIRTUAL REALITY 12
A look at firms’ office reopening plans.
PERMANENT CHANGE? 13
Dealers are touting their remote-work capabilities in their recruitment strategies.
PLEASE, RELEASE ME 15
An advisor asks Coach’s Forum whether to renew their office lease in light of Covid-19.
NETWORKING
NO MORE HANDSHAKES 14
Learn how to network with other attendees during virtual conferences.
Heading back to the office?
Not so fast, firms say, as working from home proves productive
l BY MICHELLE SCHRIVER
while working from home (wfh)
is expected to continue over the longer term, hybrid work options may be the best solution — assuming maximum produc- tivity is the goal.
Research from Nicholas Bloom, the William Eberle professor of economics at Stanford University in California, has found that WFH results in greater produc- tivity gains when workers have a choice about being at home or in the office.
Specifically, Bloom’s research found a 13% increase in productivity when work- ers were randomly assigned to WFH — a figure that rose to 22% when workers chose whether they worked at home or the office.
The productivity increases were attrib- uted to working more minutes per shift (fewer breaks and sick days) and mak- ing more calls (workers in the study were employed by a Nasdaq-listed travel agency).
When given the choice, most people
want to work from home one to three days a week, Bloom found.
You may be able to relate.
As the economy begins to reopen, some financial advisors and their staff are split- ting their time between the office and home, says Anthony Messina, president and CEO of Worldsource Securities Inc. and Worldsource Financial Management Inc. in Markham, Ont.
“They’ve realized they can do a lot of their work electronically,” Messina says. WFH, he adds, also provides personal and professional flexibility, so advisors can be more productive as they choose what to focus on and how to accomplish it.
Messina says he anticipates the general shift to WFH will persist. “People are more interested,” he says, “in what will the work from home policy be” than when their offices are reopening.
a surge in independent advisors. With advisors freed from a traditional office, some may think, “Maybe I can do this on my own and have this flexibility I’m really enjoying,” Messina says.
As long as the pandemic remains a threat, the home office is likely to super- sede the traditional one.
Royal Bank of Canada and Toronto- Dominion Bank announced in July that most of their staff will work from home until at least 2021. Bank of Nova Scotia’s head office employees also will continue to work remotely for the rest of this year. (All three banks are based in Toronto.)
Such decisions align with public health guidelines for businesses to allow WFH if possible as the economy reopens.
Messina is in no rush to return to the status quo, especially when WFH is so
The WFH trend also may result in
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ILLUSTRATIONS NADEZHDA FEDRUNOVA / ISTOCKPHOTO