Adapting to working from home

Though we take it for granted in normal circumstances, human beings are highly adaptable creatures. In so many ways, life as we knew it just a few short weeks ago is unrecognisable. Yet we at Wise Investment, like so many others, are quickly settling into our new normal. We thought we would share with you how we’ve modified the way we work to ensure we deliver the best service to you, our clients, during these unusual times.

Our role as Financial Planners and Investment Managers mean we need to be constantly up to date with changing world affairs. Ahead of the Governments formal guidance, we asked all of our partners to be prepared to work from home at short notice. On Monday 16^th March, we took the decision to significantly reduce the number of staff working in our office. For the last three weeks, we have gone further, with now only two team members holding the fort at Chalford Park Barns, while the rest of us work from home. This ensures that anything we receive from you is dealt with, with the same efficiency as it would be under normal circumstances.

As many of you will know, the last few years for Wise Investment have been focused on updating our technology, and this really has paid off. Our new database and trading softwares, which were launched last September, have allowed this process to be streamlined and efficient; something that would not have been so easily achieved, had this happened even six months ago. Furthermore, everyone in our business is equipped with a laptop or tablet computer, which allows them to work remotely. In anticipation of the current lockdown lasting several weeks, our IT team worked hard to ensure that everyone who needed a keyboard or additional screens was given access to equipment from the office. They also diverted our office extension numbers to our mobile phones, so there should be minimal disruption if you need to contact us by phone.

Something very new to us is the use of Microsoft Teams. Communication is key to providing the standard of client service which you are used to from us. As a team we regularly share ideas with one another and solve problems together. To ensure we maintain business as usual, we now host regular meetings using the video conference call function in Microsoft Teams. Daily departmental meetings and our monthly company meetings are going ahead as normal, as are meetings with our external suppliers. As many of our Partners have children and pets at home this has, as you can imagine, been an interesting and sometimes amusing change to our normal office meetings; with the occasional toddler/dog/cat/chicken popping in to say hello (yes, that really does say chicken)!

We hope that you and your families are also finding ways to adjust as we have, and look forward to inviting you back to our offices once the storm has passed. In the meantime, please do contact us via the usual channels should you need to get in touch.