As our practice gets ready to return to our studios at the beginning of August there is a buzz of anticipation among our staff after four months of isolation.

About half of us will be making our first journey to work since March as we make provision for safe working procedures.

That period has taught us that it is possible to work remotely and achieve the results that we would have expected from a normal office set-up. This has principally been possible, of course, because of advances in technology, particularly in the IT systems that have allowed us to work remotely. This would not have been possible a decade ago. The video conferencing software facilitated by Microsoft Teams and Zoom has utterly transformed the way we communicate with our colleagues, fellow consultants and clients. Even planning committee meetings can now be conducted remotely. The success of the new working environment is almost too good to be true. That’s because it is.

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