Bank Executives Hope to Leave Remote Work Behind

You can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern Time on Bloomberg Radio, or watch us on YouTube search Bloomberg Global News. Let's get some thoughts on where we are today regarding the global health pandemic. Dr Shantown new Nandie is chief medical officer at the private healthcare data and solutions company Accolade. His former health technology advisor to the World Bank. His new book, Here After COVID with the Pandemic Revealed, is Broken in Healthcare and

How to Reinvent It. He joins us on this Tuesday on the phone in Washington, d c um, it is so nice to have you here with us. Dr Nundee. Tell us, first of all, how are you and what are you seeing when it comes to COVID and the vaccine rollout and kind of where we are so far. Yeah, I'm doing great. Thanks so much for the opportunity to be here. UM and uh yeah, I mean absolutely, uh

you know, incredible times we live in. UM. You know, I think what we're seeing is, you know, certainly so I still get a chance to practice UM at a small safety net clinic outside of d C, largely serving a pretty vulnerable and uninsured population, and it's it's been really promising, I would say, you know, increasingly, I'm I'm seeing patients who have been fully vaccinated. UM. I think

hesitancy has come down significantly. UM. And I think it's we're seeing many more people coming back for routine medical care, which has been good to see. UM. And my other hat at Accolade, where we work with employers large and small all around the country. I think real major topic of conversation right now is Okay, well, what's next, Like, what do we have to do now to safely get our employees back in the office and how do we start to loosen the reins on what's been a pretty

strict UH control up until now. Well, Dr Nundy what do we have to do Because we know that the US will not reach vaccinations for many reasons. One, it's not a proof for kids, but to there are still adults who are hesitant. The President does plan to announce today that he's targeting seventy of US adults getting the vaccine shot by July fourth. How is he going to do that? Yeah, I mean, I think what we've seen around the country is that really that hesitancy and access

are heavily correlated. Right if we can make it too dead simple for people to get the vaccine, that itself moves a significant portion of the population board to wanting to get vaccinated. And so I think the idea of taking sort of mass vaccination sites that in some places aren't needed anymore and sort of deconstructing them and saying, hey, how do we actually just push this out into communities and maybe directly into holp um so that you have so much showing up in your doorstep saying hey, I

have the vaccine right now if you want it. I think that's going to help us get to that next sort of uh, you know, five percent that we need to to continue to push forward. Sounds like a Jane J one shot would be the perfect vaccine for that. Absolutely, I think you know that. It's really interesting that you say that, because I think the science of the Jane J vers the other vaccines are are somewhat similar. But I think from a delivery perspective that's sort of blast

mild perspective. I think Jane J would be a really powerful tool in our tool hit. So okay, so what do you think we need to do to get those people who are hesitant? We've made a lot of progress in a relatively short period of time in terms of getting vaccines into American's arms. So what is the thing that is ultimately holding it people back at this point? Is it access or is it just discomfort? Yeah, it's

a good question. It's it's definitely multiple things. I mean, I think access is still an issue, you know, I think, um, particularly when you think about you know, for some people, particularly those are more residents, where they want to learn about the vaccine, where they want to get it, frankly, is what their primary here doctors are an healthcare setting and still you know, like my clinic as an example,

we actually have community partnership. We can we have a sort of a large vaccination side at a church that we have. But if you see me today in clinic, I can give you a flu shot, I can get to a shingle shot. I cannot give you the COVID vaccine in the course of a normal clinic visit. And so I think that's one piece of it, um for sure. I think another pieces we needed to make the incentive of getting vaccinated much clearer for people. I think we've

been cautious. I think that's been good, but I think we need to make much clearer if you get vaccinated, here's what that's going to mean for your life, whether that's your work or your personal life. We need to sort of up to the annie on the benefits for those who are vaccinating. Do you think the CDC has

been too hesitant to do that? With messaging like this would have been more effective had the CDC from early on come out and said, hey, when you are six weeks past that first shot, when you're two weeks past that second shot, you are free to go back to living your normal life. Yeah, I think they've been more I think they've been a little too cautious, and that's right. I don't know if the exact guidances is is what you're saying, But I think it's right. What I'm saying

is like should should they? Should they be doing that? Should they be? Or or some sort of closer return to normalcy and something sooner. Yeah, I think that's exactly right. Uh And and I think part of the messaging too is it's got to be just much more understandable for people about what it means for the things that matter to them. There's sort of a design element, if you would, how we're communicating that I think is also been missed

as well. So I want to talk about your book, if we may, because it's called Care after COVID with the pandemic revealed? Is broken in healthcare and how to reinvent it? And safe to say that we've had a lot of conversations about disruption we have left for you know, reporting after the close, like they disrupt transportation and kind

of the driving world, if you will. What's interesting is healthcare has been I think one of those areas that most people would agree it's taken a while for it to be disrupted and still has a long way to go. You talk about in this book that if the health care system were an Emperor COVID nineteen tragically review that it had no clothes. So what do we learn from these past twelve thirteen months. Obviously telemedicine, that's the obvious one, and I'm guessing it's going to stay with us. But

what else? How do we move towards a more transparent, efficient, productive healthcare system? Yeah, so I think there's two elements of what we learned, right. I think one is just this idea, this sort of magnification of the longstanding failures of the health care system. Right. I think it's hard to find people these days that don't deeply understand how inaccessible health care is, how inequitable health care is, how

inefficient it is. And I think that matters because I think what was a reality for pockets of Americans for a while, you know, those with multiple chronic conditions, those who are lower income. I think now is a shared lived experience of nearly all of us, Right, We've all had that experience of you know, how do I get a vaccine um and navigating that, how do I get a task? And and I think that that actually matters in terms of the sort of public being able to

move forward to better care models. The second thing we learned is that actually health care can be way more flexible in a crisis than we thought. Right. I think even the most sort of expert folks didn't expect that clinics like mind, in the course of two weeks would go from never doing any virtual visits to nearly virtual um within a two week span. Right. I don't think we expected that we'd be able to spin up drive

through testing. Right. We've for for decades now we take people that are sick, coughing and sneezing on each other and we put them in a waiting room to cope on each other. And now we have a better way to do that. We scale that. We're also using data in new ways. Right, So in my clinic, we've had an electronic record for a long time. This is one of the first times we've taken data out of there and used it to proactively call people who are who

are sicker or higher risks that needed a vaccine. And so I think that that's a huge part of what we've learned too, is that change is possible, and I think that the demand for that change is greater than ever. And I have to say that having experienced a virtual visit with a doctor and I thought, this isn't gonna work.

How is he going? You know? And it was pretty comprehensive and incredible, And as a result, I was much more involved because I had to do things that he would have been normally doing to be without getting too specific, but it but it was interesting that I was much more involved and thoughtful in my questions as a result because I was understanding what was going on. It's been I mean for me, it's been hit or miss. It's been really good. Yeah, from a pediatrician perspective. Being able

to connect with our pediatrition has been really good. But for for you know, I thought I hurt myself riding my bike over the summer, and it was like, you know, the doctor couldn't like actually check to see if I was heard by pressing on all the areas that he would normally press on. Right, it's not perfect. So so what is the next iteration of this? Dr Nundee. Yeah, I think we're healthier needs to go and I think we one of the things that we're missing is a

clear vision of where we need to go. And what I've sort of described in the book is that I think healthier needs to become just pributed. It needs to become digitally enabled, and needs to become decentralized. And what I mean by that is distributed means care is is care happens, where health happens. It's closer to where patients are at home, in the community, increasingly on their phone. To your point, it can't just be about virtual only.

That's an important one, but that sometimes you're going to need to see a doctor in person. But it doesn't mean that care can't start closer to home. And then in some cases maybe home visits that makes sense. In some cases that may mean employer on site clinic, So that's sort of distributed. Digitally enabled is really thing. Look, the real role of data and technology and healthcare is to extend the relationships that are central to care. Right.

We think we've all learned during the pandemic that trust is essential and that trust between a patient and provider is ultimately what drives a lot of the outcomes. But up until now, a lot of the technology investments you've made, it's frankly been neutral to negative on that relationship. The e m R, the Electronic medical record being the best example of that. And then decentralized. We need to put way more resources in the hands of frontline health workers

and patients. Right. So, one of the things I advocated on early on was, you know, when everyone was concerned about testing, testing, test, and they said, well, we said, well, why don't Why can't patients just test themselves at home? Because a lot's absurd, you know, the patients can't do that, and and and and so we had these stories of people saying hundreds, sometimes over a thousand dollars just to

get a test for COVID. Today, you can walk into a CBS from Walgrain and for for fourteen dollars, you can get two kids of fourteen dollars of kids, and in fifteen minutes on your kitchen table, you can test yourself for COVID and get a pretty accurate answer. That's the direction I think we need to go. So, so, what are the permanent changes that you would like to see in order for us to be prepared for what

we not affectionately, not so affectionately called the next pandemic? Like, do we need to have the vaccination infrastructure already in place so we can respond right away? Do we need to have the testing infrastructure already in place so we can respond. Do we need to change the way we do emergency use authorization with the FDA so they can nimble? Yeah? I mean, honestly, it's all of the above, I think.

In addition, I think a lot of the ones that you just suggested or from a public health perspective, I think about it also from a healthcare deliveries perspective. Right, So, for example, if we can distribute more care to people's homes, what that means. It's like the classics, you don't want to put all your eggs in one basket. It's when you rely on a hospital and that hospital, funnily is overwhelmed. Guess what happens? Like you can't do elective care, you

can't safely hospitalize people. And we saw that too, and so actually sort of spreading out where care happens into more sites would actually enable us to be much more resilient when those things happen. UM. A big part of this is about data. I mean the fact that we couldn't even answer simple questions like at any given day, how many people in this country are hospitalized with COVID, let alone, how many of them are or African American

or Latino or let alone what your outcomes are. It is an absolute travesty, especially given that we've just spent billions and billions of dollars on taking health information and making a digital and so we absolutely need finally solve this interoperability issue for many reasons, but one of them is so that you know, we can be much more responsive so that when we have a pandemic, we're seeing the data, we're understanding the complications, and we're being able

to understand what treatment are and are not working. Isn't the endgame here in terms of what we've learned over the last year that if you're a healthy individual, no guarantee, but you're much more likely to be able to fight

a virus or some other disease or ailment. You've got a chapter and here about patient directed empowering people to guide their own care, and you talked about being a third year medical student going through the hospital and how you kept seeing patient after patients suffering from health problems

that were completely preventable. And are we ready for a wellness health care system that's about keeping people away from doctors out of hospitals, which, as you know, is quite the financial and business Jugger not right now, Yeah, absolutely.

I Mean one of the other stories in the book, and one that's really close to me because involves my own mom, is the fact that you know, my mom is that diabetes types of diabetes for twenty years and on inflant for ten she kept hearing all these reports that hey, you have diabetes, your risk of COVID higher to your point, right, and she said, I can't, I

can't handle this anymore. And so she signed up for a program that got her seven help coach, connected her with the peer someone else who also has diabetes and comes from the same culture that we do, got our virtual care doctor, and within a month, my mom went from being on influence for ten years, never having your sugar control, to being completely off of influence and and

and achieving a state we call diabetes reversal. And so I think that you know, with the third wave of digital help that we've seen, um, some of these models that are coming out, I think are exactly the direction we need to go to say, we don't need yet necessarily another drug for diabetes that's one percent better for you know, a hundred times the cost, but we need to start putting our investment from an ni AH perspective, from a payer perspective is and the idea of actually

preventing disease or or actually reversing or controlling disease. So where does that education start though, because it doesn't necessarily we don't want it to take a pandemic for for that to happen yesterday, right, absolutely not, absolutely not. And where does it start? I mean, I think it starts in a lot of places. But I think at least the world that I think a lot about is is

the employer world. I think employers are are are heavily incentivized to manage the health of employees, not only because they manage their medical costs, but also because that that productivity, whether it's you know, missing uh, you know, work for appointment, whether it's mental health, those things affect their bottom line significantly.

And but I think that, you know, there's been a little bit of a lag in that world where you know, some of the solutions that they're that they they're supporting aren't necessarily the ones that are getting to that. There's this whole cottage industry of people that are still saying, hey, you know, by fit for all your employees, I mean, that's not really been proven to work, and so I think that's where I think some education needs to happen.

It's actually unlocked in scale. Well, I gotta tell you, interesting conversation. Interesting book you talk about checklist for every decade of life you know of just how to keep yourself healthy so that you don't get to a situation where you're ill. Really great conversation. Dr Shantau Nandie. He's chief medical officer at the private health care data solutions company Accolaid, former health technology advisor to the World Bank.

And that book that we talked about care after COVID with the pandemic revealed is broken in healthcare and how to even invent it. My guesses will continue the conversation he has here in his book in the future. Look, one thing that I was thinking about the entire time Dr Nundie was speaking is about education and thinking about how healthy lifestyle starts at such a young age in

the connection between mortality, comorbidities, and um. Well, we need to do as Americans in order to make sure that we become healthier as a whole in order to be because look, it's all about being on the defensive when it comes to our health. We do with driving, we do with other things, and it makes sense with healthcare. This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer and Bloomberg Quick Takes Tim Stinovic on Bloomberg Radio. Yes, Bloomberg terminal

readers and users are reading this big time. It's the most read story about the bank. But bosses who are looking to say so long to remote working, Tim, well, you know what, It turns out that the bosses wanted the underlings don't really want it as much. Jenny Serena's finance reporter for Bloomberg News and joins us on the phone from here in New York. Jenny, Okay, what is the disconnect between management and employees. Management wants people back,

but employees are saying, hey, not so fast. I think the disconnect really comes in that employees are, um, just wanting more flexibility on a more permanent basis. So even if they're open to coming back, and even if they you know, are wanting to see their colleagues and be in the office again, they want the ability to work from home, um, you know, one or two days a week and kind of decide when that is an option

for them. Um, I think a lot of the web just comes from the fact that we've had obviously this really terrible hard years. Thanks process have been you know, storing through the roots. People are obviously productive. Um, so they're just like, hey, we've we've done our best, We've done a great job. Can't you trust us with this decision? This is like I could see a toddler. Okay, um, little little Johnny, I need you to do this? Why well because I need you back? Why well, because I

need you back? Um well, we're productive, so why do you need me back? Like I could, like, you know, profitable. The banks have done really well. We know that you know that, Um, it's working. We heard from a lot of these big bank execs early on are saying listen. I think I remember James Gorman work in Stanley saying, hey, this is kind of working. Maybe we reduce our real

estate footprints. So do they need to make the case to the underlings in order to get them back and you know, or does it not really matter that underlings ultimately you've got to come back. No, I think it definitely matters. I mean, I think these these executives are realizing that a lot of this just messaging and kind of making it clear you know, why they want folks back, not just you know, this is the day we expect you to be here. Um. And I think a big

thing that's driving that actually is um. You know, it's not that they really think that every single person needs to be in the office so that they can monitor them and track them. I think a large thing is culture. You know, these thanks that really are seeing their cultures kind of break down and degrade, um young people. You know, there's so much training that happens kind of in person. They haven't really been able to replace that in the

remote world. So I think that those are things that they're trying to kind of align people around and make them realize like, hey, someone did this for you, you kind of need to pass it on to the next generation. Um. But so much of that is just the messaging, and I think these like be handed memos that come out that's really where the rob is is kind of um you know taking place. Hey Jenny, where does burnout come into this? And to what extent can can burnout be

tied to remote work? Yeah? I think I mean that is a huge one. I think, especially given the burnout that we're seeing among junior bankers. UM. I think a lot of bankbots just seem to think that that is really because there's no outlets for these guys, um you know, on the weekends or anything like that, and so they're just always working and always on, always logged in. And for some reason, I'm just thinking of the show industry. I don't know, but I mean it's very it's very Hollywood.

What what we're hearing and seeing out there is. I think these guys are tired, and they've been working super hard, super long hours. And I think banks think that um you know, having that office environment, having a way to you know, a little bit of camaraderie in terms of working with others, but then having a way to blow off team after work, whether that's the gym or going out for drinks or doing dinners or whatever, um, you know, I think their their hope is that that will, um

you know, really help on the burnout front. I thought it was really interesting your story. You guys cite um an accent or survey a for inn North American financial services executives and you and the survey kind of points out a little bit of the disconnect between what bosses want for office work and the reality, uh they're expecting because we have heard from a lot of employers financial sector or others right about reducing their real estate footprint,

which to me sends a different message potentially. Yeah, I think so. One of the other things I think is driving this and um and will be interesting to kind of see how it plays out, is just over the course of the last year, we've all done so much more digitally than we ever had before. Um So, banks as they're able to like invest more in technology and people are comfortable with doing all of this digital stuff, they're able to I think, cut a lot of jobs.

And so I think some of what we're going to be feeling seeing on the real estate front is just the fact that they're you know, able to reduce their their actual headcount as well, just because so many, so much more is happening, you know, in an automated digital way. Um and it's happening much faster because the pandemic has just made us all that much more comfortable with that stuff.

Do you anticipate that there will be some sort of hybrid environment with these banks and you know, I mean even I don't want to say permanently because We don't don't know what it's going to look like, but every return to office kind of has this asterisk right where it's where it's hybrid, where it is not every person every day because of social distancing, Like, what does that look like a year from now? Yeah, it's a really

good question. I mean, I think, to be honest, I think the banks that offer more flexibility, it sounds like they're going to be the winners in terms of the war for talent, especially with women. We had that in the story today that just women are really craving that flexibility, especially after being given it for much of the last year. So I think, you know, the banks that offer it will probably have a little bit of a leg up um.

But then you know, we've got two really vocal banks out there, JP Morket and Goldman Sachs saying no, we believe in the future of the office and we want you guys back in. So I think there's a little bit of kind of war. Are the world's happening here? Um, And it'll be kind of interesting to see how it all shakes out. Yeah, I do wonder where we're going to be, like a year from now with all of this that's hard to say. Great story, Jenny Seraine, thank you so much. It is among our most read on

the Bloomberg Today. Jenny Seraine, of course, Bloomberg News finance reporter, joining us on the phone from New York City. You know, good questions you pose, and I guess time will tell about how this plays out. I think there's also some sort of element of like a self fulfilling prophecy here. Right when one bank does it, other banks do it.

And then when you start to see people back at the office, more and more people hopefully want to get back to the office there or the bank gets back that gets the big deals that isn't Yes, it comes down at that journal. Yeah, but you let me drive all night, please, I want to drive, just drive the question drying job. This is the drive to the globe. Commun Thanks, we'll drive us. Jonadn on Bluebird Radio. So just about tennant that happened. It's left today's trading session.

Time for the drive to the clothes with Anne Miletti, head of Active Equity over at Wells Fargo Asset Management billion dollars in assets under management. She joins us on the phone from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. On this Tuesday, and how are you I'm kidding we Carrol, how are you doing okay?

Hanging in there? Um, talk to us about the trade today, because we are saying, listen, it's all driven by some of those big tech names and that's what's dragging down certainly the NASDAC, but just kind of the overall tone. How do you see it? Well, we've seen this change in leadership happen right where you see the value rally and then you see the growth rally, and it keeps.

You know, the market teams to be changing its mind daily, but I think overall, you know, what we've had so far this year is a relatively strong market, and the economic picture looks even better. I mean, the news that we continue to get is surprisingly strong. But you know, a lot of that's priced in. It's like, you know, we've all been at the party for a very long time and we're just getting a little tired out. They

feel like that's what the markets acting like. It's it's more about what are we going to see in the next six to nine months. That's what the market cares more about, um right now, and I think that's what it's trying to price in and it's difficult when there's a lot of uncertainty in the in the future. So what does that mean for the rest And what we've heard from c e O S has been, Hey, we're not even at a point where we can actually tell you what we think we are going to sell this year.

I mean some companies aren't even giving guidance still, and investors don't like that. Yeah, No, it's a it's a it's a great point. It's um when when our portfolio managers are listening to the earnings call one, they're hearing

surprisingly great news. Right. We have companies that are surprising to the upside at a substantial amount, right, But the key things that they're listening to are also things like there's bottlenecks in the system, there's rising input costs, the transportation costs are increasing as well, and so those things are kind of the micro level things that companies are

used to dealing with. But there's macro issues to like policy changes, tax increases, other things that CEO CFOs no are changing, but they can't quantify them yet, and um, they don't know how they're going to manage their business

around them. And that's why there is hesitancy around giving broader guidance and and so you know, investors in the market are trying to price you know that in and they're trying to measure risk versus reward, and fundamentals I think of each individual company are becoming more and more

important to investors. So the big tech names that are dragging down the trade today that we're seeing an UM had a list somewhere Applied Materials and Video, a lot of chip names, Apple, PayPal, IBC, I p G, Photonics. UM is another semiconductor company. So what you're thinking on some of the big tech names that have provided so much momentum for this market over the past year or so, well, you know, we never look at just one day of trading and get too worried about what one day says.

But certainly, UM, when you look at it over a long period of time, you kind of, you know, it does it does make you pause. Look, I think there are certainly companies in there that you mentioned that still have very very good fundamentals and more importantly, that have

pricing power. And if you think about UM, you know, the world as it may look the months from now, I think pricing power is going to be something that's extremely important if you worry at all about inflation, whether it's transitory um or if it's going to get worse. Pricing power is extremely important for companies, so investors should focus on that um And then also you know, if you have changes in tax policy again, you're going to be able to have to to to transition that cost

over to the consumer. And so that's what our managers are focused on, is how do you transition that off to the consumer because margins will be compressed over time and and and you haven't had to worry about that revenue top line growth has been so strong, you know, margins haven't been a problem. But we expect that that could change towards the yur end well and kind of timely.

In a day where commodities jumped to their highest in almost a decade, and you know, we have seen the rebound and in particular the developed economy around the world, so demand from metals, food, energy are all up. We've also seen some poor weather harming crops and transportation bottlenecks, which you just talked about curbing supplies. Is it transitory, like we've heard from the Federal Reserve, So that we're going to have maybe some discomfort with some prices taking higher.

We've seen that already until these bottlenecks and these supply chains kind of get back to quote unquote normal. Well, I do think a lot of it is transit. Transitory. There's a lot of pent up demand in the system and we all know that, right. You can see it nor everyday live. Um. You know, you just look at the auto numbers and what we've seen in all time high since July of I think in July about five, um, you know, amazing numbers. But that's because you know, the

economy was almost shut down for a year. So some of that is transitory. But it's transitory until it's not.

And I think, do we get that to do that and get to that point where it's not transitory anymore, Well, that's you know, I don't know that for sure, and I'm not an account of and I'm not going to practice being one, but um, but what we're doing is watching the data very carefully, you know, as is the set right and I think they've been quick to adjust and change when the data changes, and I think that they'll do that this time around, and so our portfolio

managers and analysts are certainly watching it on a micro level at the company level and paying very very close attention to what all the input put costs look like. What's that specific moment for you though, when you say to yourself and you say to your colleagues, okay, this is not transitory. Well, I think you know again, there's all of the measures that we're looking at on a micro level, company by company and for a long you know,

for long only in equity investors. It's measuring risk rewarding, picking the companies that really have that pricing power and who can weather the storm better. And there will be companies there always are that can actually do well during inflationary periods. Deflationary periods, unfortunately, are what we always want to avoid. And so does the said so, um, it's not good for the economy long term. Um, and we know that. But but but we're trying to manage around

what we what we're delivered. Hey, just have about a minute or just under a minute left here, and um, you would not be surprised to see a correction tend to twelve percent, but for the second half is over, that's right, Um, I think you know again, given the returns that we've seen, not just this year, but certainly last year. A ten to twelve, even fifteen percent correction

would not be surprising to us. In fact, in some ways that it would be welcome because it would give us the ability to buy focks at a much more attractive Yeah, that's what's gonna say. I mean, do you have you made put cash on the sidelines in order to bounce on that opportunity when it arises and we only have about fifteen seconds left. Yeah, yeah, there are buy lists on everything. One of our investment teams waiting to react to anything like that. All right, is that

kind of normal though? I mean, isn't it normal? It is? It is, but it changes, right, it changes with price. Ye. Well, interesting day. Good to get your thoughts and good to get some macro thoughts on you. And I think you're among the first that have been talking to us about some kind of correction formal correction this year, so um, I appreciate that specificity. Time to uh say goodbye unfortunately

to Amalet, because we're getting close to the closing bell here. Amaletti, head of aquid Active Equity at Wells Fargo Asset Management, Thanks for listening, to Bloomberg Business Week, download the podcast on iTunes, SoundCloud, or Bloomberg dot com, and you can also listen to our radio show at two pm Eastern on Bloomberg Radio or watch us on YouTube. Search to Bloomberg Global News