New Beginnings

PwC’s new office building in Belfast may have been in the making in a pre-pandemic landscape, but it’s been built with the new hybrid working model in mind, Kevin MacAllister, Regional Market Leader, Northern Ireland, tells Emma Deighan.

PwC opened its largest UK office outside London in Belfast in midJuly.

Merchant Square will be its new Belfast home and the site from which the professional services firm will grow its NI team.

Boasting 200,000 sq feet, with capacity for 3,000 workers, the site is NI’s most sophisticated office to date. The professional services firm is the sole tenant of the building on Wellington Place: the nine-floor complex is Belfast’s biggest private sector office letting deal.

It’s part of a major commitment by PwC to strengthen its regional offices and support local talent and businesses. Last month it also announced a £40m investment in developing an Advanced Research and Engineering Centre in Merchant Square, creating up to 800 jobs over five years.

“We have this lovely new office, which is the best in Belfast. It’s a great place to work and our people are telling us it gives that real feelgood factor and for us, it’s the perfect setting to bring people back into the office for hybrid working,” Kevin begins.

With a dedicated wellbeing space for live exercise classes including High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and yoga, meditation pods, personal services for therapies including physio, reflexology and manicures as well as a stunning roof terrace and a café/restaurant deserving of its standalone entity, Merchant Square is the stuff of corporate dreams.

And the reception from employees has surpassed expectations.

“We never anticipated being a virtual organisation when the pandemic hit. Merchant Square was always going to be a long term investment and commitment and nothing changed in our minds during the pandemic to make us think otherwise,” Kevin continues.

“What we are ultimately working towards now is some kind of hybrid working. We won’t return to five days a week like before and the typical response that we’re getting is that our people want two days remote working and the rest from the office. And that’s probably the right answer.”

With a demographic that favours a mid-20s age range, Kevin says it is imperative that the younger professionals return to the office for their own career development.

He adds: “We’re not about presenteeism and there is no room for that working model anywhere today, but we believe that you learn by osmosis and working with other senior colleagues. It’s where you get that confidence and physical learning experience. This is about caring for the staff and not telling them what to do but showing them how they can use their time in the office for their personal and professional development.”

While the team, like many corporate cohorts, managed seamlessly in their home working environments and huge investments were made by PwC in technology to allow that, Kevin says, as the NI Market Leader, “we do feel responsible for making our people aware of the benefits of coming back to the office.”

“There are genuine personal and professional development reasons why you should be making an effort to come back in,” he continues. “Long term remote working will, undoubtedly, stifle development. And what we will see is a shift in how we work in the office and how we work at home.

“It’s that idea of a cocktail of things; that ability to access the office in a very flexible way.”

He talks about the zoned areas in the new space, which includes standing rooms for quick discussions, booths for private telephone

Kevin MacAllister, Regional Market Leader, PwC.

conversations and even a Gaeltacht Quarter. It’s inviting for any office worker, no matter their age.

“It genuinely is outstanding,” Kevin agrees. “It is the last word in everything; the quality in tech, the air, the space, the different layout, a frontier space on the top floor, client collab areas and we have the wellbeing area that affords people the opportunity to take time away from their desk. Even our PwC colleagues from across the rest of the UK recognise that we’ve taken it to another level.”

PwC has a commitment to employ a further 800 staff over the coming months and years. It continued to hire during the pandemic too, with many of the new recruits yet to, or only just getting into the office.

Kevin says capacity at Merchant Square is ultimately 3000 plus in normal times. Creating a COVID-safe environment for its people has restricted capacity to around 750 in the office at present.

“Our business is quite agile and we’re impressed with our ability to do what we’ve done over the past number of months. We will start to see more footfall and added capacity to the building soon and I look forward to that.”

Outside of the PwC ecosystem, Kevin shares his pride for what the Merchant Square site will mean to the recovery of Belfast.

He adds: “There is something important about contributing to Belfast. We are a significant employer here and this city is not going to recover on its own so we do have a duty to get our people back into the city and bring that spending power in to support businesses that are dependent on us.

“And you do get a sense of pride in having that opportunity. Our business neighbours have applauded our return and we really do feel that duty too.”

“We are a significant employer here and this city is not going to recover on its own so we do have a duty to get our people back into the city and bring that spending power in to support businesses that are dependent on us.”

– Better Connected

The race to Net Zero is the biggest national and global issue of the next decade and the upcoming COP26 summit in Glasgow will set the agenda on greenhouse gas emissions. It is vital that all sectors of our economy and society take action now to help combat climate change.

Bus and Rail travel has a major role to play in this process and Translink is leading the way with our ambitious Net Zero plans for public transport in Northern Ireland, as well as partnering with local businesses to encourage active and sustainable travel wherever possible.

High quality public transport is essential for the economic, environmental and social wellbeing of the community and never more so than now as we look towards a green recovery from the pandemic.

The race to Net Zero is at the centre of all that Translink does – while COVID-19 was a challenge for everyone, it demonstrated the importance of looking after our planet and working to reduce pollution and congestion. It is notable that the global improvement in air quality during the various lockdowns took place while public transport continued to operate, providing vital services for our key workers. This is a very strong base with which to drive a much-needed modal shift away from the private car towards more sustainable options.

Translink is committed to driving positive climate action in every aspect of our business – our initial Zero Emission Hydrogen buses have already entered service and we will have another 100 Zero Emission buses joining the fleet in the coming months. By mid-2022, we will operate the UK’s fourth-largest Zero Emission bus fleet, harnessing hydrogen and battery technology.

We will operate a fully Net Zero bus and rail fleet across the entirety of our network by 2040, harnessing new and emerging technologies.

Investment in high-quality fleet and infrastructure is a key driver for a green recovery. We will continue to bring new, modern Zero Emission bus and rail fleet on-stream and focus on providing the right infrastructure – the Belfast Transport Hub will be a key driver of economic prosperity for Northern Ireland and provide muchneeded additional transport capacity, helping to drive sustainable transport further. We will also focus on improving Park and Ride capacity and will shortly be introducing our 21 new Class 4000 train carriages to provide much needed additional passenger capacity on the rail network.

Translink is working to streamline our ticketing system, offering greater choice and flexibility to passengers, including contactless payment options. The proposed extension of Glider to North and South Belfast will also be a significant attractor for public transport.

We will work with key stakeholders to improve the integration of public transport and active travel to help improve our environment, including via the Active Travel Challenge; this will encourage people to leave the car at home this September and sign up for a healthier, cleaner month of transport as part of a wider push towards sustainable travel options, including bus and rail travel.

We need to build back responsibly post COVID-19 and COP26 will challenge global leaders to take further actions to combat climate change.

Translink will continue to lead the transformation of transport in Northern Ireland to Net Zero.