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Hello and welcome to another summary of our 
Leadership in Extraordinary Times series. I'm  

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Professor Andrew Stephen, the Research Dean and 
L'oreal Professor of Marketing here at Oxford  

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University's Said Business School. During October, 
November and December of 2020, our Leadership in  

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Extraordinary Times broadcast shifted from a 
focus on the immediate crisis facing the world,  

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to asking what happens next. Specifically during 
the final months of 2020, my colleagues and our  

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guests discussed three key questions: first what 
are the permanent changes that we are seeing?  

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second what are the knock-on consequences 
intended or otherwise of these changes? and third  

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how do we make sure that we all respond 
to all of this in a way that builds  

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forward better? To begin our summary, let's start 
with something that's changed in how we all work  

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and it's something i'd say almost all of us have 
become extremely familiar with and that is of  

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course working from home. Asha Cazazian, Director 
of Global Real Estate for the global law firm  

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Sherman and Sterling gave us her take. There 
was a notion i think for many industries  

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around the globe, that if you didn't 
show up to work you were not working and  

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many industries i would say more on the financial 
services legal services side where i work,  

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and others on the periphery of those two 
industries and the clients that they served  

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had that belief they maintained 
that belief and Covid shook that up.  

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Somewhere between 40 and 42 percent 
of employees wish to remain to work  

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from home and or some hybrid version where 
they're working from home two to three days a week.  

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An interesting perspective on our need to 
remote work also came from Ronan Journo,  

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who's the European Head of Operations and Senior 
Managing Director at real estate firm Hines.  

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This has had a number of effects, he spoke about 
remote work playing a role in leveling corporate  

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hierarchies, so let's hear what he had to say. 
It doesn't matter whether you're the CFO, CEO of  

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the company or the most junior graduate you've 
all become a square on the screen and you have  

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become you know another voice so the old world 
symbols of space have disappeared. The executive  

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floor, the corner office, the additional 
assistance outside they've all disappeared  

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and that has a huge cultural impact on 
companies and the way we use space and offices.  

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But all of this also raises some really 
important practical and financial questions  

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most of which right now we of course can't answer. 
My colleague Professor Andrew Baum, a Professor  

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of Management Practice at Oxford Said and the 
Director of the Oxford Future of Real Estate  

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Initiative, talked about some of the possible 
consequences from his area of expertise real  

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estate and the impact on offices in for 
example central business districts or CBD's.  

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If we are able to uh to move to more homework 
will that result in more space being provided  

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in cbd offices per worker, so in other words no 
economic benefit because the space that's saved  

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will simply be reallocated to collaboration space, 
better quality space or will occupiers actually  

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reduce their cbd costs. Will they save rent, 
business rates, property taxes, utility costs and  

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if they do do that where does that money go? Will 
it lead to more profits for Shearman and Sterling,  

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will it lead to higher salaries for the 
staff or would it go into third space cost?  

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As Andrew explored these questions further we can 
see how very complicated this change in behavior  

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could really become. For example employees might 
go to their employers and say i'm now working  

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from home, you're gonna save costs in the office 
i need to have a fourth bedroom, i need to have  

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an office in the garden, i need to have a study, 
i'm gonna have to spend more on housing costs, i  

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need more salary or alternatively i'm gonna have 
to spend more on commuting because i'm gonna have  

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to go further to get bigger housing that's gonna 
give me the suitable space to work from home.  

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Oor maybe the cost of third space provision will 
fall on the employee so maybe the employee says  

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look i'm going to choose not to work from home 
i'm going to choose to work in a third space  

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and i need to i need that cost to be 
subsidized or supplemented in my salary.  

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Now of course there are further implications 
too for taxation, for the future of cities, for  

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the ties between employers employees. Panelists 
in a discussion on the future of recruitment  

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for instance envisaged those employer 
employees ties loosening, more employees  

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would become freelancers with portfolio careers 
enabled by open talent platforms such as upwork.  

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This is Paul Estes author of the Gig Mindset, i 
continue to believe that not having a gig economy  

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strategy in 2020 is the same as not embracing the 
internet 1990 or the mobile revolution in 2010.  

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We all know the stories about companies who did 
not see a structural shift in the way work would  

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get done and then what happened to those companies 
and the companies that did embrace that and  

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where they are today and so i believe in in many 
ways we're starting to see freelancers and the  

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gig economy in these open platforms structurally 
change, many aspects of business. Workers are  

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demanding flexibility, companies are now providing 
that flexibility and you're starting to see  

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that shift and so i think more and more people are 
going to reach into independent work freelancing  

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as part of a portfolio career to re-skill, and 
to keep some sort of stability in their lives.  

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We can see that there are many advantages for 
companies working in this model, they can hire  

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the best talent from anywhere in the world, they 
can access niche expertise for as long as they  

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want it and they can increase diversity but 
again there are potential consequences that may  

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not have yet been completely thought through. As 
my colleague Dr Greta Corporaal, a Research Fellow  

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and British Academy Post-Doctoral Fellow here at 
Oxford Said, suggested. This new model of works  

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that are emerging and they offer significant 
advantages like freedom and flexibility and  

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autonomy and remote work enabling you to better 
integrate your work like with your home life.  

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It also brings challenges, and one one of them 
is that it kind of clashes with established  

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norms and expectations in society, for instance 
when we think about social benefits or pensions.  

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And i think that is the elephant in 
the room in all of these discussions,  

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we've seen what happened at the lower skilled 
end of the gig economy, a promise of flexibility  

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and autonomy became in practice precariousness 
and low pay. So how can we make sure that the new  

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normal of remote working doesn't become a race 
to the bottom on pay, benefits and workers rights?  

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More broadly how can we make sure that we build 
forward and build forward better. This is what  

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Kumi Naidoo, Former Secretary General of Amnesty 
International, had to say: After the 2008 and 2009  

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global financial crisis when many were saying 
we would never go back to normal, what we saw  

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was an approach by those with power, of system 
recovery, system maintenance and system protection.  

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When what was needed then and what was needed 
now was system innovation, system redesign  

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and system transformation. If we are to move 
forward, we have to be willing to now say  

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that to get out of the moment where we 
are is not simply going to be a question  

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of incremental improvements. In terms of changes 
however perhaps they have not yet gone far enough,  

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this was the perspective shared by Morgan 
Stanley's Alison Binns in discussing the us  

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business roundtable's commitment in 2019 to all 
stakeholders. You don't see companies in the US  

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being comfortable with putting employees on their 
boards which i think would be sort of a meaningful  

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indicator that a company really does have a 
stakeholder approach because frankly employees  

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are probably the most important stakeholder 
group, without which the company does not exist  

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and we just don't have that acknowledgement 
that maybe you have to fundamentally change  

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how you think about a corporation, and i will 
say not as a sort of get out of jail free card  

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but our legal system here is not set up to support 
stakeholder capitalism. And Bob Eccles, a visiting  

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Professor of Management Practice here at Oxford, 
wasn't prepared to let companies off the hook.  

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I gotta tell you you know reading the papers, 
it seems to me like i saw a lot more people  

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being laid off than i saw dividends being cut you 
know and that's a choice that companies can make.  

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That was a test right, they were tested there 
was trade-offs and they made the trade-offs  

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in favor of keeping the dividends and laying off 
employees, putting it on the states saying there's  

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unemployment insurance and there was no legal 
requirement that they have to do that, they could  

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have made the other choice: they could have cut 
the dividends and kept the people. But speakers  

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were clear that is not just up to companies, we 
all have a part to play in changing the system  

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or systems for the better. I think there's going to 
be a big sea change in how people invest, so your  

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own personal investment strategies how are they 
moving towards sustainability? And moving in  

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the right direction for mitigating 
climate change, mitigating inequality etc.  

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I want a simple two to three page stakeholder 
inclusive company specific statement of purpose  

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by the board of directors that doesn't 
read like it could come from any company.  

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What's unique about that company how they make 
trade-offs and to follow up on it with integrated  

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reporting to explain how they're accomplishing 
their purpose, where they're failing, what they  

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plan to do to get back on target. One 
of the stakeholders of stakeholder capitalism  

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is employees, so whatever the side you work in 
the corporate side or in the in the investor  

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side, you know just raise your voice saying like 
you know that we regard these issues are important  

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and it should be you know internally monitored 
and they should be externally disclosed. So  

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as we look back on the year of disruption 
uncertainty and sheer difficulty that was 2020  

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and think ahead now that we're in 2021, what's next? 
Of course none of us have a crystal ball and under  

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still such uncertain times around the world it's 
hard to make reliable predictions but one thing i  

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think that we do know from last year is that our 
organizations, our colleagues, frankly our humanity  

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is adaptable we're oftentimes more resilient than 
we give ourselves credit for and when faced with  

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major constraints adversity and great challenges, 
we can and do rise to the occasion. So for all of  

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us optimists and i certainly count myself as one 
of them who look forward to a brighter and better  

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future, the onus is now upon us to make that 
happen. Building ford better and stronger is  

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a rallying cry for sure, but we need to think 
about the tangible actions that we will take  

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and that we will lead in 2021 and beyond. We heard 
a lot in this video about change ways of working  

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and ways of thinking about business. 
Changes are happening and they were  

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before the pandemic as well although, we've 
certainly seen accelerated change due to the  

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pandemic. As my colleagues and their guests 
said, we need to think about consequences  

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intended and unintended of these changes 
and also give thought to how we can affect  

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the right kinds of changes as we keep on going. 
I'm professor Andrew Stephen thanks for watching  

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and i hope you join us soon for another episode 
of Oxford Saids' Leadership in Extraordinary Times.  

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Please follow us on social media or check our 
website to keep up to date with our upcoming

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broadcasts.