The accelerated uptake of technology throughout the mortgage industry in response to the pandemic is a definite opportunity, and one that brings long-term benefits to brokers and their clients in the form of efficiencies, security and convenience.
An area where I have seen both challenge and opportunity in abundance is the creation of hybrid businesses; those that offer excellent facilities for employees to work from the office and from home. While the shift to remote working at the start of the Covid-19 crisis initially created hurdles in terms of logistics and team motivation, in the long term our new hybrid working world will bring great opportunity in terms of flexibility and acquiring new talent.
When the UK entered the first national lockdown last March, even the most tech-averse brokers faced a sudden need to securely access, share and store sensitive client information from home. As we moved through the year, the industry began to realise that remote working was our ‘new normal’ and incoming enquiries helped to grow business by approximately 500 per cent across the year.
As a tech business, we were lucky to already have the right tools to give employees all they needed. But we also had to ensure the team remained motivated, even during an upheaval of their personal and working lifestyles.
From recreating face-to-face one-to-ones with managers, to Thursday-night socials, we put an emphasis on maintaining team spirit. Video-conferencing tools have been essential to maintaining this, enabling easy and convenient interaction no matter where people were located.
We found that a happy and engaged team made a motivated and productive team, and I’ve been so proud of how they stepped up to the challenge.
We will never return to previous working practices. Hybrid teams effortlessly working both from the office and at home will be the norm.
To facilitate such a system, businesses need to provide agile working options to ensure they are competing for talent against those in the industry who do the same. This is a positive change. Offering employees the opportunity for remote working opens recruitment to a wealth of new talent who may not have been able to apply previously due to location or other commitments.
The way businesses work has changed forever, and we are proud that our tech enables businesses to operate in this new world.
Although any change is a challenge at first, industries across the country have proved that, with the right engagement, collaboration and systems, working remotely can boost productivity while opening up a wealth of new opportunities.
