It’s that time of year, when Business Link Magazine invites the region’s business leaders to offer up their predictions for the year ahead.
It has become something of a tradition, given that we’ve been doing this now for over 30 years.
Here we speak to Thal Vasishta, Director and Business Immigration Solicitor at Paragon Law.
In the poem, The Second Coming Yeats says: “The best lack all conviction, whilst the worst are filled with passionate intensity.”
This has been starker now than at any other time, be it our political leaders or a conspiracy theorist, the worst elements in our society have hijacked the mic and with passionate intensity attempted to polarise people with disinformation, putting our collective future at risk.
Recent events as far back as the Brexit debate through to more recently George Floyd, the US election and most recently the Capitol Hill protest has brought us to an inflection point. We have all had enough of Twitter narcissism.
Where we go from here in 2021 will be interesting but I hope it will be a place where humanity raises its collective consciousness. As businesses, we will need to raise our game and have a greater duty of care to protect our communities from this noise.
It was interesting to read Boris Johnson say that once the Coronavirus is behind us that people will ‘flock back to the office’. I do not believe so. Professional services have shown that we can get business done whilst sitting at home and the office will be used as a space for connection with colleagues, collaboration and who would have thought it in 2019, a place to have a break from home!
Finally, global mobility will once again be on the rise in 2021 as Covid-19 restrictions ease. UK businesses will begin to adapt to the changes in the labour market caused by European free movement ending and the requirements of a skilled worker licence to hire talent from abroad.
Whilst 2021 promises a return to something more like normality, it is still a way off yet. There is hard work ahead of us if we are to emerge strongly from the pandemic, both in terms of business and our collective future as a country.