Lloyds pushes staff to return to office as banks lead charge against working from home
Lloyds is encouraging employees back into the office as the summer lull comes to an end.
Under current rules, members of staff are expected to work in the office for at least two days a week. The bank is now seeking to ensure that staff meet its expectations.
According to the Financial Times in July, chief executive Charlie Nunn said: “We need everyone in this together, working at pace, if we are serious about transformation and change.”
In addition to its working from home policy, the bank offers staff further flexible working options, including job sharing, extended maternity leave and flexible bank holidays.
Staff with caring responsibilities are allowed to compress full-time hours into fewer days.
However, in a sign of the tensions surrounding home-working, a number of staff complained when Lloyds announced a review of its compressed hours policy.
Sharon Doherty, Lloyds Banking Group’s chief people and places officer, commented: “We have launched ‘Flexibility Works’ to provide an enhanced range of flexible working policies for our people that will help us succeed in driving our ongoing strategic transformation plan.
“We are proud to be a leader in flexible working and we are confident our enhanced approach will continue to help us attract and retain the best and most diverse talent, as well as enhancing our productivity across the organisation,” Doherty continued.
Lloyds joins a growing list of financial services firms attempting to get staff back into the office. HSBC recently ordered its 18,500 UK staff back to the office for three days a week, starting from October.
Citi UK also said it will start monitoring staff passes to identify members of staff who are not coming into the office often enough.
US banks have been also trying to lure workers back into the office, with Goldman Sachs reminding staff recently that they needed to be in the office five days a week.
JP Morgan also asked its senior bankers around the world to work from the office five days a week. It told them they need to “lead by example”.