2020 saw the exodus from office to home for most financial professionals. Their core workflows also had to make the shift very quickly from work to home, while continuing to operate in a secure and efficient manner. Cloud-based solutions like AlphaDesk benefited from this new environment, while legacy solutions with physical deployment of technologies struggled to operate without disruptions. We explore what the future holds in this new hybrid workplace.
- COVID-19 led to remote working and huge growth of cloud deployed services.
- Offices across the globe are now opening up with hybrid workspace models.
- What does this mean for business interactions and client meetings? What tools are needed to support a hybrid workplace and trading workflows?
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2020 saw the exodus from office to home for many professionals. For our buy-side clients, it meant their core workflows also had to make the shift very quickly from work to home, while continuing to operate in a secure and efficient manner.
Many new hedge funds launched to capitalise on the market frenzy of 2020. These firms turned to solution providers that could get their trading operations up and running quickly, reliably, and remotely.
This led to a dramatic increase in demand for cloud-based workflow solutions like Refinitiv AlphaDesk’s Buy-Side Order & Portfolio Management system.
Challenges of working remotely
For most people, working from home was surprisingly productive. Avoiding hours in a stressful daily commute saved time and helped focus your energy on the job at hand.
At the same time, working remotely came with its own set of challenges and raised several complex questions: How do you separate work from home? How do you stop the workday from turning back on at night? How do you build relationships and trust if you recently started in a new team or position?
Hybrid workplace here to stay
As we slowly begin to turn the corner on the pandemic, I believe most employers and employees alike are looking for a long-term solution that lies somewhere between 100 percent remote and 100 percent back to office, i.e., the hybrid workplace model.
I expect the hybrid workplace model is here to stay and brings with it another set of interesting organisational and technology requirements for the workforce.
Here are a few that we are actively thinking about:
- Collaboration tools: Almost a no-brainer, virtual collaboration tools will continue to grow in importance to support teams and individuals across the globe both in offices and at homes.
- Organisational time management: Rather than just at the employee level, organisations and teams as a whole, must attempt to optimise for the workweek split across days in the office versus home (e.g., which groups come in on which days, do we focus on more in-person meetings at the office and more virtual meetings from home?).
- Office workspace and resource management: Hoteling or hot-desking has long been the norm at consulting shops, but now it is a key capability that most employers have to explore. However, the hybrid future needs a smarter solution that can align teams of people factoring how closely they work together, perhaps even the type of work and the days they are co-located in the same office.
- Office sharing: Do we expect a sudden surge of demand for office sharing services? Will more small-to-medium employers question the need for permanent long term offices and leases? Perhaps organisations can even effectively sub-lease their offices for specific days of the week to another firm?
The future of business meetings
For me, the most interesting question that the hybrid workplace poses is: what does the future look like for external meetings with vendors, clients and industry partners?
While I am a fan of technology and the productivity it enables, I still believe that it can’t replace human interaction, but perhaps it may have had enough sway to ‘re-locate’ the interaction.
Over the past year-and-a-half, we have seen the biggest migration of the workforce from cities to suburban areas. While many have started to return to the cities, many professionals have permanently moved away, with the assurance that technology and organisations will continue to evolve and support their productivity from a remote location.
For our buy-side clients who run hedge funds and asset management firms, this likely means that their partners, clients and investors are more geographically dispersed than ever before. Even when they are in the office, they have less availability to meet.
The future may well lead to fewer in-person client meetings at downtown offices or boardrooms. Instead, perhaps we meet our clients at their local diners, coffee shops or golf courses.
Seamless buy-side transition for the hybrid workplace
In 2020, as Refinitiv, we’ve helped our buy-side clients seamlessly transition their portfolio management and trading workflows from the office to their homes.
Looking forward, we are working to help take their workflows from their homes and offices to everywhere else and on any device, including, laptops, tablets, smartphones and maybe even smartwatches.
As a step in that direction, Refinitiv is launching the new AlphaDesk mobile solution, that enables our customers to access our market-leading OMS capabilities through a browser on any mobile or tablet device, powered with real-time data from the Refinitiv Data Platform.
Watch: Refinitiv AlphaDesk’s mobile solution
I realise that I’ve posed several questions and hypothetical scenarios but haven’t really provided any clear answers or data.
The truth is, the future is uncertain, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue to discuss it and perhaps take a few calculated steps to help our clients prepare for what could lie ahead.
