About

Team size: 55

What were the main changes to your working life during the initial Covid lockdown?

Overall, a lot more contact with others. I used to have once weekly meetings with the leadership team which then moved to three times a week. And meetings with the whole team which were previously monthly moved to once a week. Engagement with the business went into overdrive., and people were having to join project teams left, right and center. So, in a strange way, conferencing software and remote working has actually made our ability to engage with the business and have a democratic share of the voice in meetings easier.

People are now far more thoughtful about who it would be useful to have attend a meeting, rather than how many people can we fit into the meeting room. The conferencing software, like Microsoft Teams, has allowed a greater mix of voices to be brought to issues, and my sense is that we’ve all been better for it.

How have you maintained your team’s cohesion when you have been unable to see them face-to- face as regularly as usual?

There are challenges in leading a team of any significant size remotely, and I’ve got 35 in mine. In the office, I’m very much walking the floor and going over to team members to have a chat or talk about the work issue at hand. Conversely, they would have no trouble coming to my desk and asking if I have two minutes to spare to go through something.

We’ve wanted to replicate that in the transition to home working. We’ve really worked hard to ensure that people recognize that those little conversations that you can grab – as you’re both walking down the corridor, or to get a coffee, or as you’re standing in the line for a sandwich at lunch – still have to happen.

I don’t think many of our staff are wanting to go back to the office five days a week. But there are lots of people who are looking forward to getting back in the office to see work colleagues, and work together to create and collaborate while enjoying the social aspect that comes with work. Trying to ensure that we have managed to keep those core elements of the job going, even during a period where you can only see people through a screen, has been a huge focus.

In what ways do you see the in-house legal role evolving over the next few years, and how has the lockdown facilitated this?

It’s thrown up questions and challenges that I never thought I would have to think about in my professional lifetime. And because of that, it has given me the opportunity to demonstrate creative thinking and other qualities and values that have bene helpful during this crisis to the executive management team. The fact that I happen to have legal skills does not mean I do not have a view on lots of other things, and the combination of the complexities and the challenges that have been thrown up, and the democracy of voice that teams has created has meant that – like many other general counsel – I feel that I have increased my relationship with the CEO and leadership team. There have been times when these legal skills have really brought our thinking to the fore. That’s something that you build up by getting in the trenches, but it’s not lost when you get out of the trenches. My status as a trusted partner has undoubtedly grown over the last 12 months.

Overall, the situation has made us as general counsel think better, think quicker, think more differently. And, as a result, I think the value we can add has been really brought to the forefront.

What would you say is the biggest lesson, personally or professionally, that you’ve learned in the last 18 months?

Dealing with the situation has given us the confidence in ourselves and the teams around us to know that we will be able to react to unforeseen circumstances and think round corners whenever something new comes up. This confidence enabled us to best serve our organisation and navigate through a period that was not anticipated and never featured in any strategic plan.

Our organisation ran a two-day test to see whether we could get 5000 of our 18,000 people working from home for two days in a row. The most positive thing to come out of this is that there is now a recognition that flexible working is feasible, and I think we’re all going to be a lot better for it.

How has Brexit changed your economic relationship with Europe and what steps have to had to take to prepare for Brexit?

While we’re not an organisation that has a large European footprint as we are a UK building society, that’s not to say Brexit hasn’t challenged us. There are treasury and capital markets aspects, and we’ve done a lot of planning around that, but I’d say the biggest challenge for us is that we have customers who took out mortgages or current or savings accounts when they were living in the UK who are now living in Europe. What do we do with those mortgages and those accounts now that the financial framework has changed could make some problems for us.

That has meant engaging with regulators and trying to find the path through to try and ensure that we can continue to serve as many members as we can.