Working from home has started to negatively affect productivity, according to Olivier Coekelbergs, the new Country Managing Partner of EY Luxembourg. He tells Investment Officer’s Stephen Evans how he is seeking to address this.
‘Companies are having difficulty bringing productivity levels back to where they were before the vacation. This is not unique to ourselves, I hear this widely,’ notes Coekelbergs. “From the start of confinement to the end of our financial year in June, productivity was good overall.” He explains this by highlighting the unnerving but energising nature of the early days of lockdown, and that employees had limited options how to spend their time. Yet after the return from holiday, many have struggled to maintain their previous levels of output.
Back to the office
‘There is no magic solution,’ he says, so EY Luxembourg’s current strategy is ‘to ensure our people are well protected so that they can come back to the office and work with clients.’ All desks in EY’s offices now have plexiglass partitions, as well as the firm implementing the standard range of distancing measures, rules on mask wearing and so on.
Around 50% of staff are currently back in the office at any one time, up from low single figures during the lockdown. For the rest, on-going efforts are required to ensure that staff remain engaged with the market, clients, and colleagues. Some employers have been concerned that staff would consider whether to continue working if companies required them to return to work. Coekelbergs sees little evidence for this so far. ‘On the contrary, a vast majority of people are happy to come back to the office,’ he said.
Taking it day-to-day
Managing a 1,600-strong workforce as the pandemic grinds on is a unique challenge for this Belgian national who took the helm at EY Luxembourg on 1 July. He had previously led the firm’s private equity practice and its 330 staff since 2010. He notes that a pandemic is not something that can be trained for, so the only option is regular meetings and communication, as management monitors the situation day-by-day. They have to respond to changes in the health situation, changing government policies, recommendations from the EY network, and business imperatives.
A particular challenge for the large auditor annex consultancy is the large annual intake of new recruits that is a feature of each autumn. EY are in the process of onboarding 250 new people ‘and you cannot hire them and tell them they have to stay at home: they have to be trained, coached, and make external connections,’ Coekelbergs said. That said, the firm are leaning on technology to help this process.
Discovering the new normal
Similarly with their audit clients, there has been a move to performing these checks using as many remote methods as possible, but this can’t be absolute. ‘There has been a change in procedure with some clients, and we have limited the number of professionals who can visit their premises. But we still need to discuss with clients face to face. This has to be structured and properly planned.’
In general, demand for the firm’s services has not been greatly affected. Nevertheless, Coekelbergs notes: ‘Consulting was more challenging because client investment plans require substantial team work and many budgets were frozen.’ More recently, he sees confidence returning in this area.
Wirecard
This summer has been particularly tough for the firm internationally, related to its audit work with the troubled German fintech firm Wirecard. EY has been criticised for not highlighting the substantial fraudulent activity taking place at Wirecard over a number of years. ‘While we were successful in uncovering the fraud at Wirecard, we regret that it was not uncovered sooner. We are, therefore, acting across the organisation to implement innovations in our risk and audit procedures regarding fraud,’ said Coekelbergs. ‘We also believe that, whilst the primary responsibility for the prevention and detection of fraud is with the management and supervisory boards, audits should play more of a role in the future to detect material frauds,’ he added.
So what is his vision for the Luxembourg operation that he has just started to manage? He highlights ‘technology as a key enabler to broaden the scope and quality of our services.’ He is also in favour of a modified approach to HR management, seeing a need to adapt the organisation and management style to a new generation. ‘We don’t talk to each other the way we did 20 years ago, and views on work/life balance are very different now. Young people are very interested in our impact on our society and how we approach technology. To help us hire the best staff we need to take these factors more into account.’