On a wet November Monday in 2020, when many of us were working from home amid the UK’s second national lockdown, I was making my way into FXC Intelligence’s then office in Millbank to collect my laptop and formally begin my time at FXC Intelligence.

It was a surreal experience. I had not been into an office since I had gone home with suspected Covid-19 in early March of that year, and was compounded by the fact that I was meeting a single colleague in an otherwise long-empty space. Formalities over, I joined the rest of the management team on a Zoom call, most of which I had previously met over successive virtual interviews. 

Returning home, I began life at FXC working mostly remotely, a setup that has continued to this day; although while the pandemic still raged, the connections to colleagues I had not yet met in person felt vital and enriching. 

Mondays started the week with a managers’ meeting and company-wide update, while Friday afternoon bookended things with a social call, usually set around a themed show-and-tell-style format. I learned what teams colleagues supported; what enthused them; and who was being enraged by their daughter’s recorder practice. 

Monthly deliveries of treats from our CEO Daniel were also a fun focal point, allowing not only some indulgence but a common focus of discussion. 

Slowly but surely, through these and other meetings throughout the week, I built an understanding of my new company and a connection to my new colleagues, despite only ever seeing their head and shoulders through a small window on my desk. 

As we moved into 2021, the company saw more colleagues join, and my one-man department slowly increased into a fully fledged team. Meanwhile, we were slowly allowed to begin meeting in person, which saw the return of company socials.

Often combined with company-wide in-person meetings, these were rare occasions where we could see each other in person and catch up with the entirety of our colleagues, rather than just their heads. 

The first of these was especially jarring: technically I had never met anyone there, and yet I’d worked with them every day for months. But what was most surprising was how easy it felt to see everyone. Aside from the initial surprise of seeing entire people, these occasions were fun and comfortable reintroductions to in-person colleagues.

As more colleagues joined, the meetings and socials became more ambitious. We booked bigger spaces in larger buildings, and found ourselves engaging in increasingly broad activities. While the first was simply drinks on a rooftop bar, followed in the later months by a picnic and then pizza and pool, in the successive years we’ve had video game nights, karaoke and even a cooking class. 

Each new meeting has brought delight at both new faces and the return of long-established ones, particularly given the growth the company has seen over the last few years. While there were less than 40 of us when I joined, we have more than doubled since. 

As lockdowns became a thing of the past, we as a company needed to consider how we wanted to develop and work. For us, remote working was largely a major success, and it is for this reason that most of us still work remotely most of the time. 

But there is also a need for the in-person connections that were so vital during lockdown, making our move to a larger, flexible office in London very welcome. I don’t go in much, but when I do it is a valuable addition and some of my colleagues love to be able to attend more frequently. 

While the pandemic has largely passed, I believe growing FXC Intelligence as much as we did throughout it has been powerfully beneficial for the company. We have developed effective remote ways of working that mean our multi-country workforce collaborates just as effectively across borders and time zones as we do with people in the same room. 

We also have a vibrant omnichannel culture, which spans both on and offline events and interactions. And most importantly, we value each other’s needs and ways of working, and know how to support each other effectively.