When we were creating our 2020 strategies none of us had a crystal ball to predict that a Covid-19 shaped asteroid was about to hurtle towards us and alter the very fabric of the advertising industry. To say that these are challenging, or uncertain times feels like quite the understatement. But it looks like this ‘new normal’ is here to stay, and we’ve all got to band together and try to adjust the best we can.

Facing the reality of budget cuts, furloughs and redundancies isn’t easy. This pressure is felt at every level of the organisation from senior management – who are having to make difficult choices in order to keep businesses alive – right down to the more junior employees as everyone desperately tries their best to keep the cogs turning.

With us all working our socks off it’s important to keep your team motivated and inspired to continue to produce fantastic work and keep productivity up.

There has been lots of comments, discussions and conversations during lockdown about whether the time has come for some organisations to ditch their office spaces and continue to let their staff work remotely. There is the camp of people who have definitely seen an increase in their company output with people working from home and there are others are desperate to get back into an office routine. One thing we are confident of predicting is that even if companies do go back into offices things like hot desking and potentially shared office spaces where companies are packed in tight might well be consigned to history.

This week Twitter has gone public with its message to its staff that if they can work happily from home then they don’t need to ever come back to the office, which is bold, brave and certainly part of the ‘new normal’ and we have it on good authority another prominent media organisation is looking to get out of its lease early to continue allowing all of its staff to work from home.

Equally there are those media organisations who have said they want staff back in an office environment as soon as possible, but by providing provisions so they can social distance on public transport. Or find alternative ways of travelling to the office.

It’s going to be an interesting few months as the industry tries to get itself back on its feet and begin to start revving things up.

However, in the short to medium term one way to achieve tangible recognition and leave a reminder of your team’s skills is to consider entering awards for your clients and team.

It’s also important we don’t lose sight of all of the good work the industry has done in developing young talent and championing inclusivity and again there is an opportunity to have this celebrated in the latest M&M Global Awards programme.

To find out more click here.