An end to the pandemic is in sight and many retail banks, which have realised the benefits of home working, are moving to a permanent hybrid model where staff will work both at home and in the office. Not everyone thinks it’s a good idea, however, and those that do have plans are still grappling with the details. Jane Cooper reports

Gossip by the watercooler, brainstorming at the whiteboard, the hubbub of meeting rooms – all was lost during the pandemic when office staff were forced into a more mundane routine of Zoom calls at home. The benefits of working at home, however, will outlive the lockdowns as many retail banks are now making it permanent.

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The next six months will be a series of experiments for such banks, says Bhushan Sethi, Global Leader, People and Organisation at PwC. “No one has done this at scale before,” he says.

And while many banks are pushing ahead with plans for hybrid model – where staff are typically allowed to work at home for two to three days a week – not all banks think it is a good idea.

Lee Alam, Asia Pacific Head of A&O Consulting at Allen & Overy, comments that people typically divide into two camps on the topic. “There are those who think that we are losing something by remote working – especially if they are in a role that requires collaboration or supervision,” he says. This contrasts to the other camp that believes people work more effectively because they don’t have to spend time travelling to the office.

Trans-Atlantic difference of opinion

These viewpoints were highlighted in what seemed like a trans-Atlantic difference from the major banks. JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon was quoted as saying that working at home “doesn’t work for younger people, doesn’t work for those who hustle, it doesn’t work in terms of spontaneous idea generation, it doesn’t work for culture”.Meanwhile Morgan Stanley’s CEO James Gorman reportedly said of the office, “that’s where our interns learn, that’s where you build all the soft cues that go with building a successful career that aren’t just about Zoom presentations.”

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On the other side of the pond in Europe, the Société Générale CEO took the opposite view on junior staff and said young talent would be attracted by the option of flexible working. And it’s not just young talent that will be attracted: Sethi says that for banks that are keen to recruit from the technology sector, which has much more of a history with remote and flexible working, have to offer such attractive terms.

In doing this, banks need to have a robust plan, says Sethi. Publicly, the banks have not been forthcoming about the actual details of their plans. Wells Fargo, for example – which has had 200,000 people work from home during the pandemic (and 60,000 in offices) – is now making plans for a return to normal working.

A spokesperson for Wells Fargo said “We’re working now to define what a ‘more normal model’ means when we return to the workplace. We believe most of us benefit by being physically together, but we also appreciate that flexibility is important and we are not taking a one-size-fits-all approach.”

Meanwhile Deutsche Bank’s CEO Christian Sewing said that it would allow employees to work for up to three days a week at home. A spokesperson told RBI, “Deutsche Bank will be implementing a hybrid model across our bank, when eligible employees will be offered the opportunity to voluntarily work remotely for part of the working week. We will develop exactly what this model looks like together with the employee representatives and works councils.” They added that they were unable to provide details on which employees would be eligible.

Sethi comments that employees may be eligible according to their team, role or by their preference. Some banks, for example, are arranging for certain teams to go into the office on certain days. Where workers are not public-facing, and there are no compliance restrictions – such as with traders, for example – Sethi expects that banks will be flexible and allow people to continue working from home. “No one in back office needs to go back,” Sethi gives as an example.

Some roles, such as financial advisors, are perhaps better done in person. “For some roles, customers do want face-to-face interaction,” says Alam at A&O Consulting, giving the example of vulnerable customers or those with certain disabilities.

Standard Chartered ‘differentiated workplace’

Standard Chartered raised this client preference in its outline of its move to a hybrid model. In November 2020, in its announcement about the move to a “differentiated workplace”, the bank said the “enforced absences from the office has highlighted the huge benefits that employees and clients obtain from face-to-face interaction”. The bank says approximately 80% of its roles are suitable for flexible working and its staff will be given the option of choosing when and where they work. The bank will also be offering ‘near home’ work space via a third party.

Standard Chartered aims for 90% flexi-working

“It is anticipated most employees will fall into a hybrid pattern, i.e. some days in the office and some days working from home, but a number will prefer to spend 100% of their time either at home or in a Standard Chartered office. Work undertaken by some employees will also not permit them to work from home,” the bank said in a statement. The bank is aiming for 90% of its staff to be offered flexi-working by 2023, which would affect 75,000 staff in 55 markets.With rollouts such as these, Sethi points out that the leadership at any bank will have to be flexible and comfortable with the idea that things will change as they analyse, pause and correct the implementation of any plan.

Such plans also come in the context of banks considering the future of work. Singapore-based DBS, for example, in describing its “distributed workforce” model says it is part of “implementing a series of transformation initiatives to realise new ways of working in the next normal”. Under this new model all employees will be given the option of working remotely up to 40% of the time. Piyush Gupta, the bank’s CEO said in a statement, “As the way we live, bank and work continues to change dramatically, we must address the magnitude of the disruptions before us. We are prepared to radically transform the way we work by introducing a comprehensive range of measures which include implementing a permanent hybrid work model, flexible work arrangements and deploying more agile squads while creating workspaces that will help to supercharge ideation and collaboration.”

The challenge of effective remote working

There are, however, a number of issues to work through for banks that are making remote working permanent. “For roles with a high degree of collaboration and on-the-job learning, doing that effectively is difficult,” says Alam of remote working. He also points out it is harder to manage a team virtually. Instead of physically seeing when people are free, hours can be wasted matching diaries and scheduling Zoom meetings. Also, by being in the office staff can be privy to certain information – by sitting within earshot of the manager, for example – that they would not come across if they were working remotely, he adds.This echoes a point that Citi CEO Jane Fraser made in her blog in March, in which she wrote, “For many of our roles, we strongly believe there are several material advantages to being physically together,” which include belonging, collaboration, apprenticeship and learning and competitiveness and performance.

Banking is an apprenticeship business

On the apprenticeship point she wrote, “Banking is an apprenticeship business and this can happen over Zoom, but only up to a point. Feedback from an impromptu conversation after a meeting or coaching from your manager walking by your desk after watching you in action—we all miss out on this learning as part of the daily rhythms of being together.” Citi will be moving to a hybrid model where staff – in the majority of roles globally – will work in the office at least three days per week and from home up to two days per week.There are other issues that banks need to consider in adopting hybrid working. With banking being such a heavily regulated sector, Alam points out that banks have to meet certain requirements. “You have to make sure you supervise staff adequately,” he says, and during the pandemic face-to-face supervision could not be maintained and other mechanisms had to be implemented – sometimes through regulatory exceptions. One of the key things for banks to overcome is the risk management – and how to supervise without the face-to-face supervision. “The risk management control environment is a key thing to overcome,” says Alam.

Such issues were highlighted in a report by software company Behavox, which found that employees were experiencing a higher frequency of workplace misconduct because of the pandemic.

This extended to compliance and human resources issues such as cybersecurity breaches, corporate espionage, theft of intellectual property, racism and sexual harassment. Suicidal tendencies were also mentioned in the report, which points to the broader issue of the mental health and wellbeing of staff working at home.

“Not everybody thrives in an environment of remote working,” says Alam. Citi has tried to address this, with a move to Zoom-free Fridays and limiting calls outside of traditional working hours, for example. Jane Fraser, in her March memo wrote, “I know from your feedback and my own experience, the blurring of lines between home and work and the relentlessness of the pandemic workday have taken a toll on our well-being. It’s simply not sustainable.”

This is just one of many issues that need to be addressed as banks move to hybrid working. “Are people learning correctly? Are they being supervised correctly? Is the culture being maintained?,” Alam asks of banks that intend to keep working with remote working in a hybrid model.

“In theory there is some logic for remote working for certain roles. For many roles – such as branch staff or trading roles – there are these issues that have not been resolved. Until they are resolved, people will be expected to go into the office,” says Alam.