This week I chatted with Steven Barker about his career to date. Being an experienced individual, Steven has experienced a number a recessions throughout his career, so who better to turn to for worldly advice? Steven and I first met back in 2003, when he was Senior Partner at Robinson Low Francis. Describe your role with Avison Young I am the Principal in charge of Cost Management in the London Building Consultancy Business unit with full responsibility for project delivery by my team and financial performance within the unit. I also assist Paul Chesworth in his role as National Head of Cost Consultancy as and when he needs to bounce anything off an old manWhat have been your career highlights to date?I am very lucky to have had many highlights in my 47 years in the industry. I guess professionally it was being chosen to be Senior Partner of Robinson Low Francis when I was in my 40’s because there were a few 50+ guys who could have been chosen at the time but the firm needed radically modernising and the team around me at that time did a fantastic job and we elevated RLF via acquisitions and modernised systems to be a top 20 consultancy.Project wise I would have to pick two with the first being a 25 year relationship with the John Lewis Partnership who were my first new client in 1989 having been made a Partner in 1988. The range of work and pleasure in dealing with such an honourable client is my biggest highlight without a doubt.The single most enjoyable project was Project Managing the JJB Football and Rugby stadium for David Whelan. To have walked onto a piece of scrubland behind an out of town shopping complex and then deliver a multi-purpose stadium together with a massive flood relief project as an “add on” was great fun and delivered with a brilliant professional team and contractor on time and within budget as well for good measure.What attracted you to Avison Young?When I stepped down as Senior Partner in 2011 I thought about retiring but was persuaded to stay on in a new role as Chairman. Actually it did not work out well for either side and GVA contacted me and made me an interesting offer which I accepted. I knew GVA very well as they had tried to buy RLF during my time as Senior Partner and I got to know their top management and had a lot of respect for them and the manner in which they went about their business so it was an easy decision to make. In February 2019 Avison Young bought GVA and I was made an owner Principal of the business and I have to say this is truly a people first business and as a global business now the opportunities are wide ranging, exciting and numerous. AY is the fastest growing full service Real Estate consultancy in the market and we are answerable only to each other and our clients rather than shareholders which is a big plus for me. What did you want to be when you were growing up?I loved drawing and wanted to be an Architect but my dad who was a construction man said with sage like ability in the early 70’s “Don’t do that son stick with the money as that will be the driver and power base of construction in years to come”I was not really sure what he meant at the time but he has been proven right in my view looking back.What advice would you give to your younger-self?Make sure you retain a healthy sense of humour in life and deal with everyone exactly how you would want them to deal with you with honesty and integrity always.Best business advice you have ever been given?Ken Norman Chief Quantity Surveyor for Hertfordshire told me once as a junior to accept that you will make mistakes but the key is to own up to them quickly and honestly and have a plan to mitigate them or put them right. He was an amazing boss and incidently was responsible for making me choose a path beyond working for the Council and I will forever be grateful to him.Biggest personal change for you post pandemic?Well I have been pretty much working solidly from my Study since early March and although recently I have ventured back into London on the odd day a week I have come to accept that we have probably seen the end of a 5 day week in the office because we have proven remote working is an option for some of the working week.What will the world of work look like after the crisis is over? Well I am not one of those that believe the day of the office market is over. However I do think the age of agile working is here to stay and that will have an effect on the size of requirements for businesses going forward. I also see an upsurge in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the real estate sector for both transactional and consulting fields which will lead the way to new ways of working and different job opportunities that we perhaps do not understand yet. I also get laughed at when I say that my grandchildren will most probably be living on other planets in their lifetime so there are a few job opportunities in that sector for a start. Just think of the advancements in the last fifty years and imagine what can be borne out of what we can do and know now and how exciting and scary that could be! Bill Gates to the power of a hundred is somewhere in the school system right now just imagine that.How does this recession compare to previous and how can firms navigate their way through the challenges facing us?This recession is not borne out of the traditional banking and macro crises we have dealt with during my working life so I believe the pent up demand will begin to trickle back to some sort of normality in the next six to twelve months in the property sector. The main challenge facing us all is quite simply a large and growing ageing population that need to be taken care of and businesses need to wise up to this and look to those currently at school or Universities and provide the right platforms for them to progress rather than entering a job market full of old people who need to keep working because of outdated pension provisions.​

​Last week, I caught up with Sandy McBride, Divisional Chairman at Keepmoat Homes, to chat about his career to date and his thoughts around the world of work after the pandemic. Describe your role: I am Divisional Chairman for Keepmoat Homes North West and Scotland Division. I have executive responsibility for the four operating regions and I am a member of the Keepmoat Homes Executive Board.We are a division that excels in operational delivery. Our business is built on  partnership relationships and the delivery of quality housing at affordable prices. On a regional basis we build and complete both private for sale and HA / RSL contract build homes.Last year Keepmoat Homes completed over 4000 new homes with turnover in excess of £ 650m. Career highlights so far?There are many. I started out as an apprentice quantity surveyor a long time ago, fell in love with house building and progressed through the ranks from qs, on to Commercial Director, Managing Director and Divisional Chairman. I am a Chartered Quantity Surveyor  MRICS by profession.I have had the fortunate experience of starting regional businesses and seeing them flourish to success. Taking my teams on this journey and seeing their careers develop is exceptionally exciting, challenging and rewarding. What did you want to be when you were growing up? A footballer until I was a teenager and realised I wasn’t good enough to make a career from it.What advice would you give to your younger-self ? Be more tolerant and understand that people act and react the way they do for specific reasons.  Treat everyone and anyone as you expect to be treated by them. Best business advice you have ever been given? KISS. Keep it simple stupid!Breaking issues down and keeping everything as simple as possible has kept  me on the right path to manoeuvre through the day to day  duties and responsibilities in our industry.Biggest personal change for you post pandemic?Our business will be changed forever in my mind. Whether it be how we operate at site level or the home working possibilities I do believe this pandemic will fundamentally change how we have been operating forever. However, some of the outcomes are already delivering positivity in how we do things. It is no longer the case that “ we always do that this way”, and I like the way we are changing and finding exciting new ways to operate on a day to day basis.What will the world of work look like after the crisis is over?Different! I think if you are looking for a positive out of the Covid 19 pandemic it is that it will ultimately change our home and work lives for the better. It will be a new , changed and opportunistic world that we are moving towards. Having said that I don’t think the pandemic will be over any time soon.

This week I chatted I with Neil Triggs about his career to date and his thoughts around the workplace, post pandemic.Neil and I first met back in 2000, where he was in fact my boss! We were both Surveyors at the time, based in Leeds, working for EC Harris, which subsequently became Arcadis.Bellrock are a forward thinking organisation, whereby working remotely is nothing new to them.Describe your role with Bellrock;My official title is ‘Head of Technical ‘. It’s operationally and commercially leading on all technical consultancy services provided by the Technical & Real Estate Division of Bellrock.Bellrock acquired several technical and real estate consultancy businesses over the last 3-5 years to strengthen its overall offer to the market. The strategic aim over the last 18 months has been to integrate those businesses into a Divisional offering, whilst retaining some of the brands that remain recognised and differentiating to the market. Within this, we’ve integrated the acquired companies into ‘Business Units’, based around service lines, to ensure our service delivery represents best practice to our clients and markets.The Business Units cover; Project Management, Asset Surveys, Building Consultancy, Fire Consultancy, M&E design and Compliance Services.This covers a ‘big patch’ of around 250+ clients and c. £13 million budgeted revenue. The acquired businesses have some great people, so my focus is on growing our new Project Management and Building Consultancy service lines whilst providing operational and commercial oversight across all Business Units.Day to day, I’m a mix of; service deliverer, business developer, accountant, commercial manager, recruiter, problem solver and agony aunt!What have been your career highlights so far?Far too many (he says laughing)!Making it to Partner within EC Harris (Arcadis) and operating at that level for 13 years. It was a big step up from being largely a deliverer of Building Consultancy Services through my Povall Flood & Wilson days and ‘rounded’ me considerably as a person in developing a broader understanding of business and people, and being accountable for large teams, services and revenues.More latterly, being the UK Director of Building Consultancy and Safety Management at WYG was a rewarding challenge in essentially taking an embryonic team and growing it, based on my own thinking and approach. Working across different sectors also strengthened my exposure to different clients and ways of working.Whilst the second half of my career has focussed on broadening skill sets around business management, people and sales, I’m proud of my roots in Building Consultancy and the platform it created. Taking on responsibility for leading restoration work of the Leeds Kirkgate Market buildings over 25 years ago was my springboard. Did I really run a £6 million project (at 1990 prices) a year after qualifying, aged 25! How many firms would now allow their newly qualified surveyor a free reign on stuff like that? A massively steep learning curve and 3 years of stress, but immensely rewarding.Starting a building consultancy framework with a large UK Institutional Investor in 1993, I worked on, then managed and eventually led this framework. It was retained for 20 years and became a bedrock of my workload, significantly expanding my property, commercial and business knowledge. It also led to enduring relationships with the client that I valued on a professional and personal level.Why did you join Bellrock?An old friend who I hadn’t seen for over 10 years! He’d sold his company to Bellrock and had been asked to stay on and be Managing Director of the new Technical and Real Estate Division. “Did I want to sign up and help him develop and grow the Division”. The challenge was compelling and would provide fulfilment if we could make it work. It represented a pooling of 60 years-experience between us to essentially set up a new division and make it happen over a 3-5 year period. An opportunity to bring together my 25 years partnership/corporate experience and his successful business owner experience and collectively ‘make a difference’. We’d also worked together for several years in the 1990’s, so a “re-forming of the band” so to speak. It’s been the best 18 months of my career…Bellrock is unique; a blend of core Workplace and Compliance (FM) services, aligned engineering services, technical and real estate consultancy services and a market leading software business (Concerto). The Concerto platform is used by Bellrock operationally and by local authorities, health and commercial sector clients across the UK to run and manage estates and property assets. Whilst I’m not a great fan of acronyms, our IDEA (Integrated Digital Estates Assets) model, run through Concerto, is ahead of the game. Adoption by clients enables them to transform how they operate their estates and businesses through the intelligent and analytical use of data. This drives significant cost, operational and strategic benefits.What did you want to be when you were growing up?A Concorde Pilot! From a young age I was transfixed by this amazing and futuristic looking plane. At primary school I did a painting of it that was put on the reception wall and from aged 7, that was my overriding goal….. I don’t know what happened!In some respects, I was able to live my dream ‘in a fashion’; in the early 1990’s, I was lucky enough to go on one of the chartered UK sub sonic pleasure flights, from Leeds Bradford Airport to London. I accompanied my Grandma on her 80th Birthday treat, and we had a memorable day. The highlight was the take-off; zero to 230mph in 12 seconds!! Essentially, Concorde was a fighter jet that carried 100 passengers.What advice would you give to your younger-self?‘That you are as good as anyone else, but life is a complex game based on perception’.As you get older you realise that how your life evolves depends as much about how you are perceived as how you view yourself and your abilities. The world has changed significantly over the last 30 years, where we’ve moved from being somewhat narrow focussed technical and professional experts to living in a 24/7 world where everything is in the here and now. Jobs have become more about managing people, deadlines, programmes and working to results and outputs, rather than detailed technical outputs of the previous professional generations.Best business advice you have ever been given?I admired Richard Clare, my Chairman at EC Harris. One thing he said early on when meeting him was, “be interested and interesting”. I think that sums up life quite well.Another piece of advice that resonated and builds from the previous text is, “there is no reality, only perception”. Perhaps a bit deep but very true; your reality is shaped by others perception of you and vice versa. Taking this a step further you might say; “if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got”. So, to change anything, you must change first as this will impact others perception of you and how you view life (hopefully in a positive way!)Biggest personal change for you post pandemic?Over the last year, I’ve transitioned from nearly 30 years of being based in larger corporate offices to being ‘mobile’; working from home, client’s offices, shared business space etc. So, in some ways, I’ve adapted from what I’ve been used to for decades.I think the approach to business development will change as this often relies on developing personal relationships through face to face contact. People also form first impressions of someone from the first 2 minutes through body language. How this is going to work without handshakes will be interesting and challenging.There will also be challenges around people development and retention, that has been vastly under-estimated and not really considered yet. Personally speaking, I’m a social person and need to interact with others on a regular basis (being a hermit is not for me!). I think most people need this and in a work context, younger people need interaction for professional development. I’m also a firm believer that in work, your aspirations, development and fulfilment is determined by the immediate group in which you work and your manager. The social impact shouldn’t be under-estimated. Technology has a big part to play but it isn’t the be all and end all.I think the pandemic, certainly in the short term, will reinforce the home working side and having virtual rather than face to face meetings. I’m hopeful and optimistic that by early 2021, we’ll see some sort of ‘new normal’ that represents 85% of ‘old normal’.What will the world of work look like after the crisis is over?Defining a crisis end will be interesting as the media inference is that life will remain much changed until a vaccine comes along then everything will somehow return to normalagain. I don’t see it, as the world wide lock downs have caused economic devastation that will dwarf that of the statistical impact of the virus in terms of infection and deaths, versus the many normal virus’s that exist, kill millions each year and are accepted (flu, malaria etc.).From a work perspective, I think the much vaunted ‘work/life balance’ now has actual meaning as people have been able to trial it without realising! So, we’ll see a continuation of more home working, possibly greater efficiencies created by technology (TEAMS, Zoom) and the time saved by not commuting. We will work in a more socially isolated world where we rely on technology ever more (oh, for a decent broadband connection!).The biggest issues will be that of social interaction and mental health. There’s also the matter of the millions of square feet of office space out there and what happens to cities and urban areas if demand falls off a cliff in the next 5 years. There’s also all the support and leisure industries that depend on offices (sandwich shops, coffee shops, gyms, bars and restaurants). Some big issues, that workplaces and society at large need to grasp. However, humans are immensely resourceful and adaptable and I’m sure the world in 2025 will be different but better than now.