Nine months on since the COVID-19 global pandemic was declared by the World Health Organisation, we still find ourselves in the uncertain position of not knowing what post-COVID life will look like. What scars will the pandemic leave behind? Only time will tell...

As the first lockdown came swiftly last March, millions of people were forced to make an abrupt shift to working from home. This undoubtedly came as a shock to many and working as a normal cohesive unit changed for the majority to work in isolation.

Remote working, for many, has become the new normal. In our own studies, we have found that the response to working from home is like Marmite; you either love it or hate it! Another discovery is that it has certainly proved to be a great leveller in terms of gender equality.

‘Teams‘ and ‘Zoom‘ were unknown words to many of us just a year ago. Many larger companies would now cease to function without these online tools in the current circumstances.

The confusion over work-related restrictions during the first lockdown caused the fenestration industry to grind to a halt for two months last year. Since then, we have seen a bounce back, and in many areas, a mini-boom!

We all know that work will never be the same, even if we don‘t know for sure how different it will be. What we can say with certainty is that the sudden shift to distributed work has provided a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reimagine everything about how we run our businesses and perform daily activities.

At PWF, we were fortunate having recently created new systems which allowed us to go digital with many of our processes, including an online registration tool that can be accessed from any device with internet access.

Over the last few months, the move to an online presence for many businesses has proven to be the only way to maintain a visible ‘shop front‘. This is something that we at PWF we are taking seriously. Whilst we are listening to our Trusted Installers, we are very aware some of you are having a more difficult time than others. However, we must continue to focus on how we can use the situation to our advantage.

"Build It Better" is a concept we can all use to review how we are running things at the moment. We have a golden opportunity to look at what is working well in our new home office environment, build it into future processes and carry our business forward into the post-COVID era. Though, one thing we can never replicate whilst working from home is the collaborative and social importance of our office. Let‘s not forget how many new and great ideas were developed around the coffee machine in the morning.