Marking 16 years of virtual working, by Lisa Shaddick, Managing Director

Barack Obama was inaugurated US president. Avatar was released in the cinema while Slumdog Millionaire won seven BAFTAs. The Bank of England lowered the base interest rate in March to 0.5%.

2009 was a year to remember for many, but none more than Indaba, who, 16 years ago today, moved out of its impressive Marylebone townhouse office and became a virtual consultancy.

There was no Teams, or Zoom, or Microsoft 365. We blazed a trail so many others were forced to follow in 2020.

Our ethos has always been that we work in communications and if we can’t rely on our skills to get virtual working right, no one can. And communication – with a hefty side helping of diligent process - is key. We watched as companies floundered with enforced home working during the pandemic, cheered when they got it right and realised productivity was still possible and felt sad when they bemoaned the lack of culture (nonsense, I’m afraid) and called people who worked from home lazy.

To be clear, it is not for everyone, and while there are certainly functions that can’t be carried out from home, our certainly can.

At Indaba, we have clients three hours ahead of us as well as eight hours behind us. Dealing with West Coast North American clients involves working as late as 11pm some evenings, so working from home is not only ideal but also exceedingly convenient.

The trend today is hybrid working – a Forbes study shows 28% of working adults in Great Britain undertook hybrid working between January and March 2025 – spending some time working from home and some time working in the office. You only need to park at Milton Keynes train station on a Tuesday and then on a Friday to see the tangible impact of this ebb and flow. CEOs are keen to get people into offices; employees are enjoying the flexibility and the better work-life balance.

But don’t take my word for it. In a review of 1,930 academic papers on post-pandemic home working, massive advantages were highlighted: people eat more healthily, feel less stressed and have lower blood pressure. But there is a downside… we are less likely to take time off sick, and we tend to work longer hours. To be honest, I will take those to enjoy the flexibility and freedom of working from home.

I knew we had gotten it right when, during a presentation to about 20 people at a client’s office in the US, I was explaining a bit about us for some of those in the boardroom who hadn’t met us before. I said, “… and we’ve a virtual consultancy, so we have no office.” The global head of comms slammed his fist on the boardroom table and said “WHAT???”. I thought I made a HUGE mistake. It was still very early days. He quickly broke into a smile and said to the group, “we could learn something here. I have been working with Lisa and Lizzie and their team for over a year and I have assumed they all sat next to each other. That’s seamless communication.”.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.