L&G boss: We must ‘break down’ the fear of using public transport
Legal & General chief executive Nigel Wilson said it is vital to “break down” the fear of using public transport to get workers back to the office.
Wilson told Morning Wire’s The City View podcast that public confidence in the safety of cities and public transport networks needs to be restored to get workers back to the office.
“There is a great fear of using the transportation system…we have got to break down that fear and to do that people will have to travel by train,” he said.
Wilson said L&G’s offices have remained open throughout the pandemic but at dramatically reduced occupancy rates.
He said the business was slowly upping the numbers of people in its offices and trying to build staff confidence that it was safe to return to work.
“We have a programme of gradually bringing people back into the office and that’s been very successful so far at all of our offices,” he said.
“People have a natural fear of going back to the office… we try to get people used to this through baby steps. Bringing them back in for a day, letting them travel in, see what that’s like, get some confidence working in the office again, get some confidence of working with their colleagues again and we are learning a lot through all of that process and so far it has been pretty successful,” he added.
“People feel we are getting the balance about right now, our employee engagement scores are probably the highest they have ever been because the company sees we are taking proactive but very measured steps and recognising the issues and concerns of all of our people,” Wilson said.