This place feels like home...
even 17 years later!

This place feels like home…even 17 years later!

Written by Sara Hope

The way I work has changed, and I greatly appreciate how technology is enabling me to live in the West Country, work flexibly, and continue to do what I love.

Yet something significant seems to be happening too, and I do wonder what the long-term impact will be.  I was talking to one leader recently who manages a team of about 100 people. It was a Wednesday, there were only 8 people in the office, and he was questioning why he’d bothered to come in.

The impact? Fewer corridor conversations. Fewer shared moments before and after meetings. And with that, fewer opportunities to build the kind of relationships that last.

I left my role as an internal coach at KPMG in 2009, and whenever I walk back in, it still feels like ‘home’. Not just because of the work (which I loved!), but because of the people and the conversations. The meetings we had together, in rooms. The shared journeys on the tube. The spontaneous catch-ups that weren’t in the diary.

I don’t think I appreciated those moments at the time; they didn’t really feel significant, it was the ‘norm’. But they built something enduring.

They built relationships that have lasted nearly two decades, and many of those conversations are still continuing both inside and outside of work now.

I’m not one for rejecting flexible working; moving to the West was one of the best decisions we made as a family.

But I do believe we need to be more intentional with the moments when we are together.

And I really hope we continue to create the conditions for conversations that the next generation in the workplace will still value, 17 years from now.

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