Advisors Struggle to Reopen Offices
Going back to work in the physical world is proving to be a challenge to advisory firms that want to do it right.
October 7, 2020 | Anne Field | National Real Estate Investor
In early summer, after working remotely since March, Rick Buoncore started opening up the Cleveland headquarters of MAI Capital Management, where 122 of his firm’s 150 employees work. With his HR manager, Buoncore divided the staff into two groups—one scheduled to go in Mondays and Wednesdays, the other Tuesdays and Thursdays—and assigned them to desks at least 6 feet apart. Everyone had their temperature checked each morning and masks were required at all times.
Six weeks went by. Then, just an hour after holding a socially distanced meeting with colleagues, one employee received a call from a friend: They’d attended a party the previous weekend together and the friend had just tested positive for COVID-19. Buoncore’s employee had to quarantine for 14 days and get tested.
It was the fourth time his team found themselves in that situation. So Buoncore made the hard decision to go back to all-remote work again. “Until we have a better way of keeping people safe, it isn’t worth putting them at risk,” says Buoncore, whose firm has $8 billion in assets.
