Back to the office? Not back to the office? Gradual easing or another lockdown? Who knows? Whatever the answers, there are two issues that will define what happens over the short term: complying with the rules (legal or moral) and deciding what is best for your business. Over the coming months we need to get past the first and focus all our attention on the second.

I’ve written before on these pages about how the emergence from lockdown is the greatest opportunity we’ve had in years to change our business and make it better for everyone. So this, now, is the moment when we need to take a deep breath and make the decisions that will shape our future.

Like most businesses, mine is grappling with how to get back to some sense of normality in the office. We’ve surveyed our staff and spent hours debating how to organise our work so that it meets the needs of a very diverse group of people. I’m not sure we have all the answers yet but we know that if we insist on getting back as closely as possible to how it was before it will probably fail.

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