Lee-Ann Perkins reflects on how treasury recruitment shifted after COVID, weighing remote hiring's benefits against the need for intentional in-person time. She discusses what changed in the job market and why face-to-face interactions still matter for career growth.
Leanne for yourself. So for me, I think the, the benefit was being able to hire different talent from different parts of the company, of the country. So, you know, hiring from just your own zip code or just city can be challenging because there are a lot of jobs out there. There's. There's a lot of different skill sets. And when I was. Was hiring for insurance, I. I knew exactly who I wanted and the person that I needed, but they were not in my local vicinity. And so I was very grateful to be able to have a remote position where the person we ended up hiring is the top caliber, the best of the best. And she's in a different state and she's on different time zone to me. But it also works really well because she has two little kids, so she gets up at a different time, gets them to school, then she's productive the rest of the day. She stays longer hours than I do because she's. She started later, but it works really well. And I think it's. It. It's been such a. As bad as Covid was, we gotta look for the bright sides and the things that actually worked for us. And hiring that different talent has been really good. What's also been good, you know, post Covid now, if we can call it that, is we have conferences back again like afp, where we may not see each other as regularly during the year or in the offices, but when we come back as a community and we thoroughly enjoy these three days. I know I stayed out later than I ever do last night. It's not like me to be up at 11. But it was really fun. It was just, you know, different people, we got to interact and then I know I can sleep late tomorrow. So it, it, you know, you make the most of what you can. But I wanted to just go back to an earlier point you said, Mike, about being really intentional when you go into the offices. And I think that's the time where we don't go to our desk and get on a zoom meeting with somebody else. We actually take the time and go and meet our bankers and our vendors in person. We go and walk across the aisle to IT or AP or whoever it is and just make sure you're not, you know, wasting time, but you're actually building those social interactions and you're using that week well. And for me, when I go into the office like that, it's exhausting because it's a lot of additional energy and enthusiasm for a week, which is great, but it does wear me out. So I'm grateful to go home the next week and just kind of work at home and be quiet. But it's really what you make of it. And we're in a different world. We got to have a different perspective. If you want your career to grow, you look for those bright sides and you work on that. And you just, like Joel said, you lean into different things and you learn to change a little bit on your side as well.
