In closing 2020, Renatus conducted a short survey amongst its valued network in conjunction with The Sunday Times. We asked questions looking back on how Covid impacted the last 12-months, and what to expect ahead for the next 12-months post-Covid. The survey was conducted before the recent level 5 announcements and received over 1,000 responses, between 13/12/2020 to 17/12/2020. Our results are summarised below.

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Core highlights from the survey:

• 74% of respondents were C-Level, Shareholders or Management.
• While 48% of respondents expect to work either “majority from home” of “all from home” in H1 2021, this sentiment flips in H2 2021, with 47% of respondents expect to spend the “majority of the time” or “all of the time” back in the office.
• Working from home looks set to remain in a post-Covid world with 68% of respondents expecting to work more from home post-Covid, with 38% of these expecting to work “significantly more” from home. This is compared to pre-Covid, suggesting the future is neither one nor other but much more of a hybrid.
• 2021 is being viewed as a year of a return to growth, with 53% of respondents expecting to hire more staff in by December 2021 that they had in December 2019. Only 15% expect to have less staff.
• On balance, working from home has had a positive effect on productivity. 78% of respondents believe that their team is equally or more productive working from home vs 23% who believe that their team is less productive.
• Video conferencing looks to be a more long-term fixture in how people interact. There was an 8 percentage point rise in the respondents expecting to increase their use of video conferencing services in 2021 compared to our survey in April. In 2021, 98% of respondents expect to use video conferencing the same or more than they did pre-Covid.
• Covid travel concerns remain, with 77% of respondents expecting to travel less by air in 2021 vs pre-Covid, up 23 percentage points from the same question in Aprils’ survey.
• M&A opportunities are a key pillar of growth for respondents in 2021, with 28% expecting it to be their business’ biggest opportunity for growth.
• The Covid hangover on business sentiment is seen as the biggest potential limiting factor for growth with respondents. 39% of respondents see business sentiment as the biggest limiting factor, followed by market growth with 27%.
• Unsurprisingly, with 34% of the responses, the thing people miss most in lockdown is socialising.

• In H1 2021, 32% of respondents assume to work ‘Majority from home but some from the office’
• Only 16% assume to work ‘all from home’ during H1

• In H2 2021 32% respondents assume to work ‘Majority from office & some from home’
• 25% of respondents expect to split their time 50:50 between home and office
• Only 6% expect to work ‘All from home’ in H2

• A cumulative 68% of respondents expect to work ‘significantly more’ or ‘marginally more’ from home post-Covid

• 53% of respondents expect to hire more staff in 2021, while 32% saw no change
• 15% expect to have less staff

• 32% of respondents found the staff to be more productive since covid
• 42% found no change in staff productivity
• Only 21% found their staff to be less productive

• 98% of respondents expect to use video conferencing the same or more than they did pre-Covid

• Only 18% of respondents expect to increase their networking patterns post-Covid
• 43% of respondents expect no change to their networking patterns post-Covid

• 77% of respondents expect to significantly or marginally reduce their air travel post-Covid
• Only 5% expect to increase their air travel plans

• 31% of respondents saw product development & innovation as the biggest opportunity for their business in 2021
• 28 % of respondents saw M&A as the biggest opportunity for 2021
• An increased online & digital presence wasn’t far behind with 26% of respondents seeing it as the biggest opportunity for 2021

• 39% of respondents see business sentiment as the biggest limiting factor to business recovery post-Covid

• 34% of respondents miss socialising the most
• Family & work colleagues were least missed during Covid with 22% of respondents voting for these

• Responses to this open-ended question are compared to pre-Covid and are pooled under the below respective categories
• Digital / IT & Healthcare / Pharma are the main sectors respondents think will benefit post Covid-19
• E-commerce & Logistics should also benefit according to respondents
• Construction, advisory and retail were also mentioned on numerous occasions