P2P firms predict permanent changes to working routines as lockdown eases
Peer-to-peer lending platforms have followed the rest of the economy by shifting to remote working during the pandemic and many of the changes could remain permanent even as lockdown restrictions ease.
The nation is slowly being encouraged to go back to work and Prime Minister Boris Johnson has urged employees to travel to the office rather than work from home.
P2P lenders have slowly started planning to reopen their offices and there are signs of some lockdown-inspired changes.
Money&Co has said it will reopen its offices fully in September but founder Nicola Horlick has decided staff will be able to work from home every Friday.
“It is usually the worst day of the week to come in and out of town,” she said.
“Our systems are geared up to working remotely so we don’t all need to be in the office every day.”
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Filip Karadaghi, managing director of LandlordInvest, said the buy-to-let lending platform has embraced remote working even before the pandemic.
However, he said it still needs to fit in with a company’s strategic and operational objectives.
“I personally would expect that things will go back to normal once the crisis is over, although perhaps remote working will be more common than before the crisis,” he said.
“A company and its staff’s working arrangement is important to meet the company’s strategic and operational goals, including ensuring that customers are being treated fairly.
“It is up to each company to decide if their working arrangements achieves the company’s strategic and operational objectives and make necessary changes if it does not.”
David Bradley-Ward, chief executive of Ablrate, added that working from an office is more efficient.
“We have no plans to make remote working permanent,” he said.
“It was an interesting time and we learned a lot, however working together in the office is just more efficient for our business.
“I can imagine that if you are in a city environment with lots of commuting for your staff and high rents that you may be thinking differently now.
“Our staff have a view of golf course, in a beautiful part of the world and lots of facilities so we haven’t seen any appetite for working from home permanently.
“What we have learned is that managing home workers is reasonably easy if you have the right tools, so we would not write off taking on people who do want to work from home.”
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