The Lockdown Diaries – Patrick Mayor

Smooth transition

I think Mercer & Hole have handled the transition to working from home well and for me there’s no real difference between working from home. It has been strange getting used to communicating with everyone electronically and I miss going to the office kitchen for a quick chat and a cup of tea.

Effective communication

The most interesting and challenging thing about working from home fully has been devising new ways to work and to communicate effectively with our clients, when with audit clients we would usually be at their premises to conduct the work. I think the teams have come up with innovative and useful ways to circumvent this and our audits have gone as smoothly as they would have done before.

I have taken part in the Mercer & Hole photo competition, firm-wide and team quizzes and sent in a video for the ‘Keepy up Challenge’ all of which have made me feel connected with my colleagues. It is nice to be kept in the loop by the management team with their regular communications but it also gives me a real feeling of being part of the firm, which is really important when we can only see each other through a computer screen on video calls.

The simpler things in life are sometimes the best

The main thing I have learned from this experience is that it is sometimes nice to take things a bit more slowly and that the simpler things are sometimes the best, in particular I have enjoyed spending time with my wife and daughter. I think another big positive when we return to normal is the realisation of the amount of work and communication that can be done remotely, I think the pandemic will lead to a sustained change in how some businesses operate.