Financial Times Europe - 09.03.2020

18 ★ FINANCIAL TIMES Monday9 March 2020

When was the last time you wore an
orange T-shirt to the office? Have you
ever ducked away from your deskto
take a friend’s dog for awalk? And
when was the last time you tried to
take a shower, only to be stopped over
and over again by co-workers sending
“urgent” emails?
I did these things last week because
I’m a coronavirus office refugee — and
pretty soon, I suspect, many of us
will be. For almost a month, I’ve been
stranded in London instead of at home
in Hong Kong. An underlying health
condition means my doctor thought I
would be safer here than over there.
Now, I’m staying and working in a
friend’s home.
As coronavirus spreads across
Europe and the US, colleagues who had
asked me what it was like to live and
work in a city plunged into crisis — first
by months of anti-government protests
and now by a health emergency — are
finding out for themselves.
Coronavirus is the black swan
management challenge of the age of
globalisation.Companies are being
forced to buy bucketloads of hand
sanitiser and instruct staff about the
importance of personal hygiene. They
are cancelling travel and everyone is

having to quickly develop and

implement plans for remote working.

It is manageable — just. But for all

the flimflam about the wonders of

working anywhere and being agile, this

crisis has unearthed a host of

unexpected challenges.

For a start, technology is a help but

no panacea. Platforms including Slack,

WhatsApp and Microsoft Teamsallow

organisations to communicate. Video

technologies, such as Skype and Zoom,

help too. But these requiretheir own

etiquette. The friend who is housing

me is a fashion industry consultant and

also works from home. He thinks

carefully about how he looks for video

calls — he is in fashion after all — and

the background clients see.

I was reminded of this whena senior

colleague, who was working from

home,appeared onscreen in a lackb

T-shirt. It was a slightly alarming sight

at first but that quickly gave way to

reassurance that I was not the only one

dressed like a student while producing

a business newspaper.

The second thing coronavirus has

revealed about organisations is how

much managers trust their people. It is

common forHQ to ignore or dismiss a

regional outpost. That feeling is

amplified for staff who are suddenly

forced to work at home. Despite all the

messaging platforms, a crisis like this

makes it ever more important to

empower and have faith in your able

lieutenants. And if they do well, drop

them a note or call to tell them.

Coronavirus has also showed how

intertwined our personal and

professional lives are. The biggest

challenge for many in Hong Kong has

been the closure of schools. Teachers

hold daily Google Hangouts with the

children and schools have put reams of

content online. But for younger pupils,

it is impossible to keep up without a

parent helping out as a full-time,

at-home teacher.

Japan and Italy have closed schools

and it seems likely that other

jurisdictions will follow suit. Given how

many families have two working

parents, companies have to brace

themselves for a potentially huge

disruption affecting multiple

employees at the same time.

Organisations and managers that

handle this well will engender loyalty

and productivity.

But perhaps what is most revealing

about coronavirusis that it has shown

us whatwe’re missing out on. For my

kids, it is the social aspect of school

itself. For many of us workers, that

same feeling comes partly from our

interactions at the office. We bemoan

the politics or the commute, and yet we

need it as social beings. The

conversations in the canteen or the

boost you get when someone offers to

maketea cannot be replaced by the

ping of a essagem in your inbox.

The evolutionary psychologistRobin

Dunbaronce told me that in-person

interaction is an essential part of how

humans maintain communities, build

meaningful relationships and learn

how to compromise. “In a digital

environment, you can just pull the

plug,” he said.

These are qualities that are essential

to office life. And the joy of wearing a

T-shirt and hanging out with a cute dog

will never replace that.

[email protected]

“For all the flimflam about

the wonders of working

anywhere, this crisis has

unearthed a host of

unexpected challenges”

Coronavirus

crisis shows

office workers

what we miss

CROSSWORD

No. 16,420 Set by FALCON

 

 

 

  



   



  

 

 

JOTTER PAD

ACROSS

1 Honest pitch in fun park (10)

7 Stand in pub full of energy (4)

9 Station a long way? Miles (4)

10 Part of a large church team

the Spanish man included

(4,6)

11 Fertiliser in container for

plant, for instance, beginning

to hum (6)

12 What a maverick may throw

away to lead order? (8)

13 It’s extremely short opening

(8)

15 Couple I came across heading

west (4)

17 Deer having short leg (4)

19 Cowboy with rod crossing

river (8)

22 Stick surrounding bishop, a

bishop back in capital (8)

23 Broadcast from Nether

Alderley (6)

25 Different approach involving

end to play, line being

unauthenticated (10)

26 One acquiring right to develop

area of land (4)

27 Part of the barracks in an

untidy state (4)

28 Musical instrument coming

after organ – hearing aid

required! (3,7)

DOWN

2 Seaman, on his tod, finds

edible mollusc (7)

3 Alcoholic drink wicked

daughter put out – something

from Cuba (5)

4 Busy time of day in plant by

hotel belonging to us (4,4)

5 Indisposed subordinate,

British subject? (5,3,7)

6 GP, say, on French island,

easily managed (6)

7 Finch seen by leader of bunch

walking for pleasure (9)

8 Sign put up in an English plant

(7)

14 Large amount of money, for

example, in Massachusetts

county (9)

16 Composer, retiring character,

one who’s never married (8)

18 Pair set off, wander aimlessly

(7)

20 Become bigger, in general,

after adjustment (7)

21 Mole in the region of the

genitals, reportedly? (6)

24 Genuine marks, a field of

interest (5)

Above average Joe

Meet the 81-year-old behind the

hipsterAeroPress coffee system

ZCOMPANIES & MARKETS

Ravi Mattu

Business Life

The biggest challenge

for many parents in

Hong Kong has been

the closure of schools

Kin Cheung/AP

Where spreadsheets are used

Auditing and controls

Corporate performance reporting

Comparative analysis

Model validation

Financial planning and analysis

Departmental budgeting/forecasting

Revenue recognition/sales compensation

Financial disclosures and SEC filings

Spreadsheets

Combination of spreadsheets and

other databases/reporting tools

Probability of bottom-line error

Per cent

Sources: Forrester Consulting; FT Research

Probability of individual cell error (%)

Number of cells

in spreadsheet

{ }

To err is human. To do so expansively

requires a harassed data drone

plugging numbers into a spreadsheet.

This week, a former minister blamed

“administrative errors” for the addition

of projects costing A$3.3m ($2.2m) to a

worksheet of Australian government

spending after it had been approved.

Cynics suspect a conspiracy. Cock-ups

are more common in ordinary office life.

The ingredients of spreadsheet hell

and the numeric mistakes that come

with it are as follows. Item One: a

delusional boss asking the impossible

(“Jo, just tot up the standardised

risk-weighted assets of the world’s top

1,000 banks for me, would you?) Item

Two: a short deadline. Item Three: a

desk littered with empty coffee cups,

popped ibuprofen packets and

half-eaten pizza slices.

Magnificent bloopers may result. A

forgotten negative sign once led

Fidelity’s Magellan fund team to

miscalculate a loss of $1.3bn as a gain.

JPMorgan Chase’s $6.2bn trading

losses in 2012 — the “London Whale”

incident — were traced back to

mistakes in the financial model used to

calculate the risks associated with the

trades. This required data to be

manually copied from one Excel

spreadsheet to another.

It is not just finance. In 2016, an

Excel snafu led Marks and Spencer to

announce that sales had risen in the

quarter. They had fallen. The UK

retailer only realised the error when

discussing the results with an analyst.

In 2013, a graduate student rocked

the case for fiscal austerity by finding

errors in an Harvard University paper

on public debt and growth. Five critical

rows of spreadsheet had been omitted

when calculating an average.

Such incidents are the thin edge of a

very big wedge. The chances of making

a mistake in any particular cell are small

— likely to be in the range of 1-5 per

cent. But errors cascade down to

subsequent cells, so the bottom line in

large spreadsheets is highly likely to be

wrong. A study of 15,770 spreadsheets

used by Enron found nearly a quarter of

those containing formulas were flawed.

Overconfidence is partly to blame.

The best fix is thorough testing,

according to Raymond Panko, a

University of Hawaii professor.

That is time-consuming. Some

managers do not understand or care.

The boss of cartoon toiler Dilbert

thought spreadsheet mistakes were

fine if the final number was the one he

wanted. How many times does that go

undetected? Lots, probably.

Spreadsheets:

catalogue of errors

MARCH 9 2020 Section:Features Time: 8/3/2020- 17:08 User:lyndsey.jones Page Name:1BACK, Part,Page,Edition:EUR, 18, 1