Marlene Outrim: The highs and lows of lockdown

Just into the sixth week of the team working from home and just me holding the fort at the office (I only live five minutes away), it has been a lonely although productive time, even though the team members are regularly in touch by email & Zoom and doing all they can to keep the business going as usual.

In many ways, it seems surreal and takes me back to when I first started as an adviser and there was just me who did everything. Obviously, the business was much smaller then and had far fewer clients, but it has made me realise how far we have come and how much the business has grown.

When Boris Johnson declared that only those needing to go to travel for essential work, it did not take UNIQ long to establish our working from home set-up. Some of our team were already prepared as we had allowed flexible working for parents with young children, and for others it was easy enough for our IT company to accommodate, as we already had VPN and Cloud-based systems.

Thank goodness for technology then, as it would have been much harder without it. I have been able to communicate with clients not just using Skype or Facetime, but when it has been necessary to show cashflows and work through them, Glance and Zoom have proved invaluable. So too has the use of email and there is a pressing need now to get our client portal up and running.

It has been there for us to use for some time, but we had just not got around to doing the necessary work on it before releasing details. We have an older client bank and some people think that would restrict us, but so far we've met very little reluctance and the meetings have been as constructive, productive and as full as ever.

I think at times like this, the strength of your business and proposition are really tested and can illustrate whether you have put in the requisite business work, planning, tools and the right team.  

You know those embracing ‘WFH' and continuing to work just as hard are committed; hesitancy and lack of full cooperation marks out the poorer ones. It is not true that you cannot monitor your team when you are not surrounded by them.

The quality of processes and systems also come under scrutiny and I have pages of changes I want to make when we are back to normal. Having to be hands on, just like the old days, has its merits, although I am not sure the team will agree once we go through the list.

It is a pity that not all providers have tackled this lockdown period in the same way but have carried on regardless, sticking to their already outdated processes, even though the world around them has completely changed; some things will not be the same.

Resistance to use technology, even emails to provide information, has left me speechless. Mounds of paperwork have still been posted to us, taking days at times to reach us, when a protected email with attachments would have served a quicker and more timely purpose.

One the other hand there have been those companies that have quickly stepped up to the plate and, if not paperless before, have quickly become so, allowing e-signatures and dispensing with lengthy application forms.

With others it seems that the shock of this pandemic has left them bewildered, if not downright stupefied that their methods are now lagging behind everyone else. I think the current situation throws these antiquated and traditional methods into the spotlight.

As for our clients, many of them have been with us for so long that they have been well-educated in understanding the volatility of the stock markets and to sit tight at times like this. We have heard very few concerns, even when the FTSE went below 5,000, but I think people are more worried about Covid-19 and how it is affecting their daily lives, their families, work and friends.

Certainly, our marketing messages have continued with the wellness and positive theme of a "Life Well Lived". Maybe they understand that, like Bob Weighton who marked his 111th birthday the other week, they're in it for the long haul.

Marlene Outrim is managing director of Uniq Family Wealth

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