In an FTF Exchange podcast, Sara Poldaas from Mawer Investment Management talks about how she learned to love working from home.
Sara Poldaas, Mawer Investment Management
Pandemic-induced lockdowns and ongoing remote staffing are changing financial services in multiple, unexpected ways. For securities operations teams and their managers, the pandemic has had personal impacts that are catalysts for change.
Such is the case for Sara Poldaas, the director of portfolio services for Mawer Investment Management, based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.
Poldaas recently took part in an FTF Exchange podcast to talk about her experiences as a director during the pandemic.
“I would say that one thing I learned quickly at the onset in March when we went into lockdown was that my capacity for change was not as strong as I believed it to be,” Poldaas says.
“To be fair, I didn’t adjust well to working from home. Personally, I’m an extrovert. I get a lot of energy and enthusiasm from being around my colleagues and I rely a lot on those personal connections. And, I had not a lot of experience working from home. I don’t have a home office environment set up specifically because it’s not a preference for me to work from home. Fast forward, six months and actually now I’m really loving it,” Poldaas says. “I expect it to continue to evolve as time passes.”
During the podcast, Poldaas discusses:
- Handling operational processes that are manual or more paper based while staff members are remote;
- Dealing with the catalysts a true digital transformation;
- The impacts of the lockdown and remote staffing on client relationships;
- How it really feels to remotely manage a team;
- Lessons learned from these lockdown days;
- The unexpected positive aspects of the situation;
- And her hopes for 2021.
(Poldaas was interviewed for the story “Mawer Launches a ‘Spine Replacement’ IT Overhaul, which can be found here http://bit.ly/3q0dM5I as part of the special content for the SecOps Online pages.)
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