Press the reset button on our working lives - Nick Freer

As the business scene looks ahead to 2021, many are now focused on an economic recovery underpinned by a successful deployment of the vaccine.

Nick Freer, founding director at Freer Consultancy

As we chart our way through another lockdown, our working and personal lives are as entwined as they have ever been before as we find ourselves holed up at home again.

Businesses everywhere continue to adjust to keeping the wheels turning with remote workforces, those with children are back to juggling the work day with home schooling, and all the time in the background there is the spectre of Covid and never-ending headlines around public health.

I read somewhere recently that Napoleon said a leader’s role is to define reality and provide hope. As Covid-19 continues to bite, it feels hard to define realistic hopes for 2021, but in this vein I decided to ask a few business leaders what their own hopes are for the new year.

Freedom Bakery in Glasgow

Gib Bulloch, Geneva-based author of The Intrapreneur: Confessions of a Corporate Insurgent and founder of the Craigberoch Business Decelerator, sees Covid as a chance to reset.

“One silver lining from 2020 was the fact that the business world was forced to slow down and catch its breath – a temporary opportunity for busy executives to lift their gaze and reflect, less on what they’re doing, but more on where they’re going,” he said.

Mr Bulloch continues: “My sincere hope for 2021 is that we don’t simply see the vaccine as an opportunity to jump right back onto the hamster wheel, but instead to press the reset button on the pace and priorities of our working lives.”

Nicki Denholm, founder and chief executive at Denholm Associates, the Scottish executive recruitment specialist that has seen a spike in digital hiring since lockdown, says: “One of the positive aspects of the Covid-19 crisis was the acceleration of flexible working.

"As the pandemic recedes, I hope that employers will continue to invest in digital connectivity and that government facilitates better infrastructure. This will not only create a more inclusive and diverse world of work, but one that’s healthier, happier and more productive for us all.”

Melinda Matthews-Clarkson, chief executive of CodeClan, the digital skills academy that marked its one thousandth graduate last September, says home schooling can be “a big mental drain and is taking a toll on employees and, in turn, productivity”.

While being an obvious advocate of digital skills, Matthews-Clarkson says she hopes we can get back to physical events in the not too distant future: “The recent Turing Fest was online and it was great but you can’t network and really connect. We need that back please.”

Matt Fountain, founder of Glasgow-based social enterprise Freedom Bakery, whose planned new facility has been held up by government restrictions on construction sector activity, says: “My hope for 2021 is to see that business grows on the resilience built through the pandemic to create a more sustainable future, particularly when it comes to the welfare of employees. Although we will overcome the pandemic, we face other great challenges ahead, particularly with the environment.”

FutureX co-founder Zoi Kantounatou, embedded in Scotland’s entrepreneurial circles, told me: “My hopes for 2021 are my belief in humanity and the world we can create by working together. This year, I would like to see us start rebuilding all that we realised was broken in 2020; systems, structures, injustices and access. Let’s spend this year reimagining and bringing to life a world that serves everyone.”

Hurrah to that.

- Nick Freer is the founding director of strategic corporate communications agency the Freer Consultancy.