‘It’s going to be amazing for the regions, unemployment blackspots will be eliminated’
ABODOO’S VANESSA TIERNEY DISCUSSES THE FUTURE OF REMOTE WORKING
IT may seem like life has always been thus, that we always worked from home, always held virtual meetings with colleagues and clients from our kitchen tables. But less than a year ago the concept of remote working was alien to the majority of the Irish workforce.
Yet now, having acclimatised to this new way of life, our sights are set on the future, on how to utilise our skill-sets in the post-pandemic environment.
Vanessa Tierney is the founder and CEO of Abodoo, a Gorey-based business which was launched from the Hatch Lab in 2017. The name Abodoo is a combination of ‘abode’ and ‘do’ which provides a clue as to the nature of its work.
Vanessa explains how the company came into being. ‘I was a remote worker, not out of choice. Ten years ago I fell ill and I couldn’t commute,’ she says. ‘So I had a lot of experience in this, and I found there were loads of people out there who, for whatever reason, couldn’t commute. Maybe they had young children, challenges with mobility, whatever it might be.
‘I realised there’s was a gap there so I set up Abodoo with the idea of giving people the opportunity to connect with others who wanted greater flexibility.’
Describing it as a ‘dedicated remote working platform for people and business’ Vanessa says the original idea was to match businesses with workers who wished to work remotely.
However, it quickly transformed into something else.
‘We started as a matching platform but we very quickly evolved to matching and mapping because I realised we were catching really good data around people’s desires; where they wanted to live, work, what skills they have, how they transfer skills from industry to industry.
‘So we started to produce talent maps for government, anonymised talent maps. This has helped Wexford drive inward investment with the IDA.’
Upon launching the business Vanessa could never have envisaged that, within three years, the entire country would be remote working on a frequent basis.
Yet, recognising that Abodoo’s services would be needed now, more than ever, she and her team have sought to make this transition as painless as possible for their clients. Furthermore, they have begun assisting leaders across the world, providing national governments with the information required to get the best out of their respective workforces.
‘We’ve built a platform called geonostics, it’s the first dynamic data intelligence mapping platform for government. It gives governments the information they need on the skills of the people,’ Vanessa says.
‘Because I always say our greatest asset is the skills of our people, really it drives everything in the economy; from creation to inward investment.
‘So, we’re selling geonostics across Europe, Asia, Canada. The pandemic has enabled us to identify a niche where our mission is job creation and reskilling people, which is really important, now, more than ever.’
Yet even Vanessa, for all her progressive thinking, couldn’t have foretold the changes in the Irish workplace in 2020.
‘I thought where we are today wouldn’t happen until 2030, the pandemic simply fast-tracked it and forced leaders, who perhaps didn’t have the trust to make changes, into making them,’ she says. ‘We don’t have to educate anymore, which is wonderful, we can just focus on our solutions.’
One of those solutions is Abodoo’s latest project, Yonderdesk, a tool which Vanessa’s invites me to view remotely via her screen.
Yonderdesk is, in a sense, a virtual office space, complete with a canteen, a gymnasium, even somewhere to relax with a few drinks at the end of the week.
‘We have staff in Italy, the Phillipines, Cork, but we’re all in a centralised place,’ Vanessa says. ‘The idea behind this is when the pandemic’s over offices will reopen, but it doesn’t matter where you’re dialing in from, you can be a in a centralised location.’
To underline her point, Vanessa says that at lunchtime she will often drop into the staff ’s virtual canteen, joining other members for a video chat and a coffee.
Already being used by businesses across the world, the hope is that Yonderdesk will eventually be adopted by universities, enabling students to connect on a virtual campus.
Despite the nature of her work, Vanessa, who was born in Bray and moved to Gorey with her family seven years ago, is keen to stress that she’s not selling remote working.
‘That’s not my product. My product is employee wellbeing and engagement,’ she says. ‘I personally think the best model is a combination; in America they talk about the 3-2-2, three days in the office, two at home, and two for yourself, which I think is a nice model.’
However, she believes the rise in remote working will benefit regions like the south-east in the longterm and ensure a greater distribution of talent across the country.
‘I think it’s going to be amazing for the regions, we’re going to have a distributed workforce right across the country, the unemployment blackspots will be eliminated,’ she says.
‘What you’ll find is skills clusters across the country, circled around digital hubs. So, for example, Wexford might become very well-known for tech, Louth for cyber-security and so on.
‘I think we’ll see industry and education and Government working closer together. We’re saying “we can map people’s skills and look at future trends to see what’s competitive and where people want to live and work” and then feed that data to governments when they’re making policy decisions.
‘As a result they will know where to plan houses, where more hubs are needed, where connectivity is needed, it’s just better for the country over all, better for the small towns.’
Right now however, the country is in a state of flux, our economy on hold while we await the easing of restrictions. But Vanessa is characteristically upbeat about the future.
‘I think the opportunity is there for Ireland to become a leader in this new world of work,’ she says. ‘If the Government really look at regional hiring, regional job creation, we could be the first out of the gates after the padnemic.
‘All the big boys in San Francisco are thinking “where are the skills clusters? If we can hire anywhere, where has the best talent?” Ireland has the best talent, if we can showcase it.’
And unlike previous generations, our most talented workers will be able to avail of those opportunities without leaving the country, without even leaving Wexford. ‘In terms of virtual real estate we’re just at the beginning, the interaction online will become so superior that you’ll have to justify why there’s a commute needed,’ Vanessa says.
For business-owners, the key is embracing these new technologies, adopting smarter working policies from the off. ‘Be open-minded to explore everything right now because the world, even in 12 months time, will be different again,’ Vanessa says.