LOOKING FORWARD TO NORMALCY

This experience has confirmed that real estate is such a strong investment asset. It was remarkable to see how property values all over the world responded.

Stable to low mortgage rates and a continued lack of supply in certain segments supported the market. But more importantly, consumers who were spending more time at home began looking at their homes differently— it could be more than what it used to be.

The pandemic also showed the resiliency of the Filipino. Filipinos are incredibly adaptive and tolerant. Enduring one of the most restrictive “lockdowns” in the world, people were mostly compliant to all conditions such as curfews, masks and shields, travel restrictions, etc. People followed the rules. I believe the country showed a lot of discipline.

Culture also matters. Workers adapted to working from home for a long time. But it’s hard to manage a team culture while working from home. If you didn’t have a strong work culture to begin with, you wouldn’t have been able to do as well as those companies that did. Ultimately, I believe most office jobs will return to the office mostly on a full-time basis. As tempting as it seems to be able to work from home, it can never create the same camaraderie that working together does. That’s how culture is created and nurtured.

Challenges, strategies

Our customer-facing teams had to figure out ways to keep in touch with clients, service providers and suppliers. This shift had to be done quickly and across multiple platforms to ensure that we could get the results we needed.

It was quite a challenge under the circumstances of the pandemic. Everyone was sudWWW.INQUIRER.NET denly vying for the same means needed to work online. But we worked it out and deployed tools and resources to employees’ homes while our backroom teams modified their procedures to adapt to virtual operations.

Getting back to construction as quickly as possible was done at great expense to provide the new health and safety protocols that were required. But it had to be done, because we had commitments to make good on.

As a company, it was great to see how our people figured out new ways to work and how everyone pitched in. It was an admirable team effort—and it was a shared experience that brought people closer together. I’ve seen how the teams now get together after work to be with each other and share experiences. It’s great to see.

Steady recovery

Keeping businesses open and supporting employment while keeping everyone safe can help ensure recovery, as well as having a clear sight of policy changes that will affect the citizenry and business so that changes can be planned for and we can make informed investment decisions with confidence.

We are working on some major projects which will be announced in the first quarter of 2022. We are very excited about it.

I believe we are all looking forward to a return to normal in 2022, in whatever form that might be—simple things like get-togethers, parties, school or anything that lets us be a community again.