After two years of lockdowns, restrictions and anxiety, Ireland is opening up. Three members explore how their goals have changed – both personal and professional – in 2022.
Jennifer Nickerson
Owner
Tipperary Boutique Distillery Limited
In 2021, our goals were focused on survival. We had been hit hard by COVID-19 and were trying to keep our heads down to make sure that we would make it through the year. Everything was about existence.
Our focus has definitely changed in 2022. We are thinking about growth and opportunities; the conversation is about breathing life into new ideas and developing critical markets. We have some fantastic product ideas and interesting distillation projects, but I think the most interesting and novel opportunity will be tourism in 2022. Our distillery has been operating for over a year now but hasn’t been open for tours. I think the opportunity to welcome visitors will allow people to understand our distillery and allow us to tell our story naturally. We are an entirely authentic business, a true field-to-bottle distillery, and people will be able to experience this for themselves when they visit us.
My main challenge this year is both personal and professional. I will be coming back into the business from maternity leave with fresh ideas and will need to figure out how to make these work with a small child in tow.
I poured my life into Tipperary Distillery for six years and barely took a day off – I took a laptop on every holiday and even worked on our honeymoon. We have been lucky to get a good crèche space for our little boy, but I’ll need to work smarter this year to make everything happen for our business and still be present for our baby when he needs me. In some ways, COVID-19 has helped in this regard, setting the stage for more online meetings and showing how much we can achieve remotely, but I still see this being the main challenge as we try to find a new normal.
I’m feeling hugely optimistic about the year ahead. There are so many opportunities as life begins again in 2022, and while some challenges will crop up as we emerge back out into the post-COVID world, for us, they bring infinite possibilities.
Mark Lawther
Assurance Director
EY
I think it’s safe to say that we all hoped 2021 would be the year that we managed to emerge from the pandemic. While things didn’t work out that way, I feel a real sense of optimism as 2022 gets underway.
While challenging, the great ‘work from home’ experiment has genuinely proved just how effective we can be when working remotely. Before COVID-19, I wouldn’t have considered the possibility of delivering complex global audits in an entirely remote way! But by using cutting-edge digital technology and integrating that into our audit processes, we were able to continue to provide high-quality audits, enhance the way we look at risk and offer unrivalled insights to our client throughout the process.
We haven’t just adapted our working approach with clients, we’ve also had to modify how we work internally. We have a fantastic culture of collaboration at EY, and of course, we are a training firm, so a lot is learned by observation. Having fewer days in the audit rooms meant our newer staff had fewer opportunities to learn by osmosis from senior colleagues, so we were mindful that we had to find creative ways to continue to nurture junior talent. Leveraging the latest tech, we were able to find plenty of opportunities for people to learn from each other while tapping into our extended networks to help people make valuable contacts.
My hope for 2022 is to fully embrace hybrid working and give our newer team members greater access to the ‘on the job’ learning that I was lucky to benefit from in my early career.
Overall, when reflecting on the past two years, the most significant benefit of the disruption has been the opportunity to be much closer to those that matter at home. I have spent two years at home on time for dinner with my kids, and my travel and commuting time has been virtually zero. As we move into 2022 and adopt a new hybrid approach to work, I plan to keep these benefits going a few days a week.
Isabelle Cairns
Tax Manager
James Hardie International Finance DAC
2021 brought with it a new role in a new organisation, and although it’s been a year, we haven’t yet been working in the office at full-team capacity. Mastering the balance of the hybrid work model and building strong team connections are worthy challenges that lie ahead for businesses and their employees.
The most significant change from last year is the specificity of my goals. What was previously pencilled in for ‘one day’ has now been given an actual timeframe. A positive taking from the pandemic was having time and space to reflect on what matters, which, in turn, helps decision making going forward.
Working in tax in a growing global business, combined with the ever-changing international tax landscape, certainly keeps one on their toes! Right now, navigating international tax reform and its associated implications across business operating jurisdictions is a key focus.
While some things are out of our control, it’s great to get back into planning for life beyond lockdown. Now that international travel is on the cards, adventuring to far-flung destinations is something I look forward to. Climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, a long-term resident on my bucket list, is a more realistic prospect this year.
In 2022, I look forward to in-person meetings and other opportunities to connect face-to-face with colleagues.
Personally, I hope to get my foot on the property ladder. Aside from, I have signed up to cycle the Ring of Beara with a group of friends. Two very different challenges, both of which I look forward to with a degree of apprehension.
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