Ms Joanne Mangan:

The Deputy's question ties in with the point he made about small businesses. The shift to remote work has been quite a costly exercise for a lot of companies. The larger multinationals have been able to pivot more easily because their infrastructure and technology was set up to work remotely before the pandemic. They are international businesses and are used to working with distributed teams. It is the small to medium-sized companies in the main that have really struggled with remote working. I am talking about companies that would have been paper based with paper files. Nobody would have ever used Zoom before. They may have had desktops on desks and no laptops. Imagine those companies suddenly being told they had to work remotely. The challenges they faced in the last two years and particularly the costs are something we think they need some support with. That is what we are asking for.

We would like to see a local enterprise office, LEO, fund or grant system set up similar to what has been provided in the past for digital readiness for companies. The cost is an up-front cost so in the longer term we would see a cost saving for businesses if they make the move to remote in terms of being able to reduce their real estate footprint and other efficiencies that may be gained through remote working. We are not talking about a long-term funding model or supports but something to kick-start and support companies that have had to invest quite a lot of money. There is also a time and resources factor. It is not just the cost of equipment, technology or infrastructure. A lot of companies have had to appoint someone to do this full time. In Grow Remote I work every day with people whose job is the remote transformation. That applies to large and small companies. The time and resource issue is also costly for businesses.