Mike Richards discusses remote and hybrid work policies in treasury roles, touching on workplace mandates and how they affect work-life balance. He shares personal observations on what companies are asking of employees and invites viewers to weigh in on the tension between office requirements and flexibility.
Hello, it's Mike here from the treasury recruitment company. I hope you're enjoying the podcast. And now this is one of my first personal video blogs. So we started to produce as part of our newsletter, more of an article, bit more of a personal viewpoint about different issues, different things that we're seeing in the world of Treasury. A few years ago, I tried to do this as one of my podcast listeners. Tom Baelish and guest, lovely guy, said, we need a bit more, Mike, we need a bit more of your opinion. So get them video as well. I've also been asked to do this by Deirdre, my lovely business coach, and she said, look, people want to hear from you. They want to hear your personal opinions. You've already talked about it on the podcast, so they want to hear you talking about the world of treasury recruitment, the world of work, some of your personal opinions and some of your observations. Some of the things you're seeing actually in the market. So this is it. This is the accompanying video that goes with our Friday blog podcast. Yeah, we're going to get a better title. I don't know. But we do our regular podcast with interview guests on the Treasure Career Corner on a Tuesday. And this is the Friday. So if you're listening on Friday. Hello, welcome. First of some, many of these that I'll be doing. So on the blog, I talked about remote work and some of the reactions to that came out were really pleasing. I really enjoyed talking about it. We. I entitled it, talking about Amazon, Dell, Man United, who have mandated their employees to come back into the office. I think they, yeah, Man United even invited employees to resign if they didn't comply. For me, this did. And it did in, as I put in the blog, send a message. These companies don't trust their teams. I actually also looked it up because I wanted to recheck Zoom. So if I look at the. There was an article. It's about the truth behind Zoom. Zoom is not abandoning its office to go fully remote. Instead, they're saying embracing hybrid work. Right. Really, we're a Zoom customer. This is on Zoom. But they are asking employees live within 50 miles, okay. To work in person two days a week. This will impact only 34% of their 7,000 staff. But if you, if you work with it and you don't, what happens? Is that mandated? Is that a nice request? Is that a nice to have? Could you pop in sometimes? The fact is it's Zoom just. And the others. So I, as I said in the blog, if I were in, if I were based near Their offices. The thing was. And so you said, what would you do? I think is a great idea. They're like, really? I said no, said no. It's a terrible idea. Oh, there's a great idea. For me as a recruiter, the first thing I'll be doing, or I was doing actually I was going to a lot of those organizations, making sure I was tagging people in the treasury teams for those organizations on LinkedIn, not reaching out to them because that's their choice, but to say, look, if you need a new role, call me. If I can help, call me. So just being there sort of thing, hybrid working isn't a bonus anymore. It's the norm. If you're forcing your employees back into the office five days a week without a real reason, you're telling them not trusted. Now, I did actually make some comments and some notes about this. There may be situations, times in business where it gets very busy and you need to be in five days that way we understand that. But mandating it, unless you are in a job that maybe the emergency services, maybe the care, caring services, where you're then looking after people and healthcare and things like that, that might be more of a reason. I could see actually why you need to be there a lot more. Doesn't need to be 100%, maybe not all the time either. Treasury by its very nature, I know, is collaborative. There are times when being face to face, whether for training, coaching, brainstorming, solving problems that can be focused individual work, but also you can work with your colleagues. Now can you do that over zoom? Can you do it over teams? You could, but I don't think you need to all the time. Certainly there were great, some fantastic comments. So some shout outs. Elena Hill, she talked about how rigid office policies hurt diversity and inclusion, especially for people like herself who have health challenges. And she actually very kindly shared that. She's got an article link, we'll put that in the show notes as well. Well, and that would have those inflexible policies could close up opportunities for her and others. Janine Wilkinson, she commented and I then also followed up with an example of some London office I know London firm who were actually mandating everyone to come back into the office at least 10 days out of 20amonth. And it was like that's great but actually you've only got desks that can accommodate a third of your staff. So how's that going to work? Alex Ilan made a great point about companies using these mandates as a cost cutting exercise. And we had the lovely Fraser Nicholl, the director of Treasury Income Payments over in Atlanta, Georgia, commenting about Man United and more of the Man United team coming back into the team and things like that, I couldn't really comment on that, particularly as my son Barney is actually a Man United fan. So I'll let him answer that. He will be able to help you. So part of that and then there was another topic we were going to talk about on the blog, but I didn't put it in there. But I'm happy to talk about it now. And it also touches on what Deirdre, my business coach, she said, look Mike, you need to be more personal, okay? Business content, personal content. I actually find that difficult to balance. I used to work with someone in the past who he sent emails to clients that I just found too difficult. They were very personal about him and his family, day to day life and things like that. Now I'm happy if anyone wants to chat about Rugby swimming my favorite podcast, my first million by the way. It's brilliant and I'll put a link to that in the show notes Those conversations are one to one or maybe over a beer or three, not in emails or LinkedIn posts or emails directly to clients. Mark Williams, who's the LinkedIn coach, great guy again, another podcaster, he suggested I should try and you know, share more personal stories and I will do like this that I think are going to help you as a Treasury professional succeed. Now whether that's to help you find your next role, benchmark your salary through our survey or understand market trends, that's where I can add the value and I'm happy to do that. But if you want to know about last weekend's very wet rugby match I watched or what podcast I'm listening to, reach out, I'll tell you. But professional content that's professional personal stays personal. If you want to comment, feel free. Everything else we got the shout outs for everyone that was there. Couple of other shout outs. Well in particular Steve Corner Lielson. Steve, great to meet you. AFP Nashville. He took a selfie with me. Maybe I'll put that in the show notes as well. Just wanted and he told a few people about the podcast. What I would appreciate if you have any colleagues who you think could benefit from listening to this stuff about treasury career stories each and every week, just send them the link treasurycareercorner.com and if there's other topics you want me to cover, let me know if you've got questions. Love to hear your thoughts and keep the conversation going all right. Many thanks. Speak soon.
