The future requires constructiveness – including in management
The future requires constructiveness – including in management. After a chaotic spring for all of us, we now seriously need to learn from our experiences. Because we can use flexibility, trust and digital solutions to make work and work life better and smarter. But let me be absolutely clear: This is obviously not at all the same thing as ‘headless savings’.
I hope you enjoyed the holiday over a spring where it is probably not an overstatement to say that none of us has experienced anything like it. Covid-19 – and the shutdown that followed – has left a mark that is not just disappearing everywhere right away.
It is still worth remembering what actually (also) happened in March and the following months: Employees in the financial sector took on an enormous responsibility to keep the wheels going and help private customers, the business community – and your companies. You kept working, even though society shut down. In new forms and under new conditions. From a distance and from the kitchen table or the nursery.
That effort was crucial for customers and our community in the absolutely extraordinary situation. The fact that 98 per cent of both private and business customers, according to a report from Finans Danmark, got help from the bank when things got really hot, clearly shows that the financial sector and the employees took care of the fundamental societal tasks and that you and your colleagues had a huge part in that.
At the time of writing, we are in a phase where a new daily life is approaching. But it will be in a different form than the old one. The shutdown gave us a taste of the future. Digital solutions – and, for example, virtual meetings – made a quantum leap. So did the flexibility of work organisation, because all of a sudden it was actually possible to work differently and more independently if the necessary confidence was there.
Cuts are not the way forward
In many areas, there is a lot we can use moving forward. Both as employees and as companies. Therefore, we will also discuss the experiences with the employers, because these experiences can be used constructively for all parties if done right. For the sector and our companies, we need to develop both business and work organisation constructively in light of the experiences.
Therefore, the cuts and cost-savings of the one-dimensional size and extreme extent that Danske Bank sent out along with its semi-annual accounts in the middle of the summer are completely unacceptable. This is not a way forward, but the exact opposite, where they think they can cut their way to long-term results.
The employees in the financial sector take responsibility and create value for customers – including in new ways. But something is also required from the employers if we are to come out stronger in the long run. The employees have very much shown the way forward. Now the constructive approach to the experiences needs to also take hold in management.