Tony skinner
Hi and welcome to the podcast channel podcast my business.com.au and we welcome again Lisa from www.lewers.com.au that I use as le w ers to go through the latest market survey results. How are you Lisa?
Lisa
I’m really well how are you going tony.
Tony skinner
I am frickin fantastic. I just walked weekend with my walking group for a walk over the Harbour Bridge. We went to the rocks to the cafe to have tea and scones in the rocks there. i just walked up the road to have a coffee, droveup to visit a friend in Gosford, which is about 20 k away on the weekend. And what did you get up to on your weekend?
Lisa
Well, not very much really. I’m really quite envious of that you obviously can go beyond five kilometers. From your domestic address, you know, it’s a good date when I can walk around the corner and have a coffee on a park bench.
Tony skinner
Having said all of that, though, spring is definitely sprung here in Melbourne. And cases are going down and we’re looking on the up and up I think.
Tony skinner
Yeah, absolutely. And, yeah, look, I know, look, I do recall when we this started in March, and we were locked down and whatever and so far, we didn’t get as severe as you thankfully. But I feel very sorry for everybody in Melbourne. It’s a what’s been happening is pretty tough. But what do you do
Lisa
what do you do? And you know, and I think as we’ve talked about, sorry, I was gonna say, you know, we’ve talked about before the second time around, it’s not a charm. And so tony wouldn’t be so You know, I think, you know, partly necessary, but hopefully, we’re going to have the best summer of our lives anytime soon.
Tony skinner
I think you guys will really appreciate. I think we all starting to appreciate more of what we have. And that’s certainly starting to show up in the survey results.
Lisa
Yeah, it is. You know, we went we went out, obviously, you know, from my own perspective, I started to think about, you know, how’s everybody feeling from a, what do we do next? Go back to work. What does that office look like? You know, do I sign another lease with my office, all of those sorts of things. So, you know, luckily having our own little panel on tap, we were able to go out and get some views on how employees and employers were feeling around return to work and their current conditions.
So I started to think about what are we going to do next? And I guess it in part that hands a little bit on how effective do people feel like they are working from home, how they set up and what do they expect from them that their employers? And what are they looking forward to and all of that kind of thing. So, within our sample, we had a small set of small business owners, as well. And I think the first thing you know, in part of the answer to the question is, most people so in some schools, over 70 80% of people feel like they are working more productively than they were in the office.
So I think that, in itself is intriguing. And when we had a look at some of those really specific questions around, how easy is it for you to communicate with your colleagues? Do you have the technology that you need? Do you have the equipment and materials that you need? And, you know, like most things COVID, the experience is pretty divided. But there’s quite a degree of consistency between the employers perspective and the employees perspective. So I was saying it pretty well split. So for example, 50% of employees have said, You know what, it’s really easy for me to communicate with my colleagues. And 51% of employers said the same thing. 50% of employees said, I’ve got the technology I need to stay Connect connected when I’m working remotely. 49% of employers said the same thing. So there seems to be a degree of parallel in the experience there. 
So it seems that in the very basic things, of working from home 50% is obviously not a majority, and you’d love to see more. And perhaps, as this becomes a longer term trend, we will, but there seems to be a fairly consistent perception of how well people are set up to work at home between employers and employees. And people are not saying that it’s completely unaffected, that you know, it is effective. And certainly they you know, half of them are saying that they can still communicate in ways that they want So that was the first question, am I productive? And do I have what I need to be able to work at home?
Yes, I feel like I’m productive. And about half of people would say they’ve got everything that they need. So potentially some work to do there. off the back of whatever strategy businesses take in returning that then the other interesting thing was to get a little bit of a feel for how do people feel about going back to work? What does the future of work potentially look like and what’s on their mind, from their expectations of what their employers will do? And again, here, we started to see a bit more of a deviation in the results between the employee and the employer perspective. So to give you an example is 60%. of employees had they’ve got confidence in their company and their employer to overcome the challenges faced by COVID-19. That was slightly higher amongst the employee group who 68% of them believed that they had everything they needed to overcome.
Lisa
58% of employees are comfortable returning to their worksite and less so with employers were a little less confident in returning to the worksite. And the big differences really came in the perspectives on how we communicate. And, you know, the evidence is the feedback we’re getting is saying that the communication of huddle approach, the challenges of return to work are going to be really, really important. 
And at the moment, most people are focusing on those hygiene factors of how do we handle social distancing? Well, we have sanitizer, and in fact, one of the biggest concerns in returning back to the workplace is whether or not your colleagues will comply with whatever social distancing practices are put into place. So 55% of employees are comfortable communicating concerns that they’ve got to their leadership team, or as employers, more comfortable 69% of employers are comfortable communicating back down. And perhaps not surprisingly, the biggest difference really is around how people get to work. So 27% of people said, I’m not comfortable commuting by public transit transport. And 69% of employers said they weren’t comfortable with their team members communicate, commuting via public transport.
So it’s not just what’s happening in the office, but how I get there. That’s going to be the issue. And at the moment, you know, the transition has been from let’s start at health. We’re starting to get some green shoots, employers are feeling optimistic. They’re looking forward to getting some sense of what businesses normal will be, but there is an underlying concern around the state of the economy and how well they’ll be able to rebound at the other end. And the timing of this work was just prior to the government In saying that we were officially in recession, they’ve got long, longer term, our issue is there for them. But having said that, definitely, there’s interest and a willingness of people to be able to come up with some new form of hybrid work environment.
And of course, being able to switch your time between being at home and working from a central site addresses some of those concerns around the public transport, which is obviously a hotspot for potentially getting infected or spreading COVID. So essentially, only 38% of people thought that they would just go back to working as normal back into their on site and the majority when I’m talking on site or office workers, but it does apply to you know, factory and manufacturing and hospitality and those sorts of things to say very few people are thinking that this is just going to be a normal transition. back into what we were doing before all of this happened.
But overwhelmingly as well, even those that are expecting to be able to work from home, don’t really want to be working from home all the time. And people are starting to understand or appreciate the importance of some of the things that you need to do in work are easier to do face to face, and through collaboration face to face. And it’s starting to miss out a little bit on that social connection and the social interaction that they get just through those water cooler moments that we talked about and the ease of being able to be, you know, on the spot to deal with issues. And, you know, the functional kind of tasks everyone’s fine with. There was a recent BCG study that showed how easy it was for people to do the functional things, but it’s the chain management things and the collaborative tasks that are Little bit more difficult remotely, and potentially better solutions will come out for that. But you know,
Tony skinner
so we will be covering this a little bit more in depth in another podcast. So everybody listen out for that it’s gonna be up soon.
Lisa
really fascinating stuff. You know, definitely the office is not dead, and people want to go back. But we also need to think about ways to be really productive when we’re working remotely.
Tony skinner
Hmm, exactly. So well, okay. So And what about businesses feeling confident for the future, getting their businesses back in order and the growth of the economy going forward?
Lisa
So, you know, with so many things, it’s so sector specific and obviously at the moment, state specific, so less hopeful. And, you know, we’ve got people in our Melbourne sample saying they’re not sure they’ll survive it. You know, they’re starting to feel like it’s back when they first started the business and they didn’t know if they get through the next 12 months versus, you know, people who are thinking businesses pretty much as usual, and I’ll be fine. I think people are trying to be very optimistic and saying, once restrictions are off, I’ll be great. So very variable, and in terms of impact, and many are looking forward to getting back into the office, talking about how we say safely returned to the office, and really looking for what that new normal might be.
Tony skinner
There’s certainly opportunities out there and I guess it’s called pivoting at this stage. Someone comes up with another, I’m sure someone will come up another super wonky word rather than think sooner or later. Yeah, it’s a year of Yeah.
Tony skinner
Yeah, exactly. Um, so getting people back together. And getting their brains trust back together is going to be pretty key to power and power forward.
Lisa
Yeah, absolutely. And, again, that basically study I was talking about just showing how important that social connectivity is for improving productivity and for driving collaboration within teams and, you know, organizations need to be able to collaborate.
Tony skinner
Yeah, exactly. And we’re gonna, again, we’re getting into it a little bit more detail in another podcast. This one, we just wanted to get into the survey results, and then split out. We’re returning to the office separately. Is there anything else you’d like to add?
Lisa
No, no, I think that that’s it. I think it’s a kind of a steady as she goes. And you know what I think one of the great things is that the results have shown that there’s some alignment between what employers and employees are thinking. And I think it just highlights the importance for open dialogue about how you make these transitions.
Tony skinner
Yeah, exactly. It’s, it’s keeping things, trying to keep in touch with everybody as much as possible. And I guess it’s hard to do that remotely. When you’ve got
Lisa
so many people and you’ve got zoom and everything else can be a challenge. They’re very challenging. I think there’ll be a whole new industry developed around how we stay connected remotely.
Tony skinner
Yeah, exactly. So it’s gonna. Alright, cool. All right, thanks very much for that and the wrong thing, or trying to do more than one thing at once. And you know what men are like, it’s actually a myth. Across the board,
Lisa
to the relief of men across the world, I think.
Tony skinner
Yes, exactly. It came out. So the survey said, Men and women are both equally not very good at doing more good. Yeah, we got yay we always do that. But we would let us say it Right, narrows, Lisa. Okay, I’ll chat to you again very shortly. Cheers.
Tony skinner
Thanks, Tony. narrows, Lisa. Okay, I’ll chat to you again very shortly.
Lisa
Cheers. Thanks, Tony.
