With the remote work days of the COVID-19 pandemic seeming like a distant memory, more big banks are calling employees back to their offices full-time.
Among them are Citigroup, Barclays, and HSBC, which are all adjusting their distance-working policies, including asking groups of employees that were previously eligible to work remotely to make their way back into the office five days a week.
🏙️ Citi
The New York-based bank will require roughly 600 U.S. employees who previously had flexible work arrangements to work full-time from a Citi office location, the company said in a statement. Most staff, however, will be able to stay on hybrid schedules, the bank said. For the last few years, Citi has required employees to come to the office at least three days per week.
🔷 Barclays
U.K. banking giant Barclays is requiring thousands of its investment banking staff around the world to work from the office full-time, unless they are traveling to see clients, it said in a memo Thursday reported by Bloomberg. The new policy will go into effect on June 1.
♦️ HSBC
HSBC’s head of human resources Mabel Rius told Bloomberg that changing policies changes will impact 530 of its New York employees, or roughly half of that group. The bank is trying to allow as many staffers as possible to stay on their hybrid schedules, Rius said, but it has underscored that it’s not enforcing a blanket five-day in-office work week.
New FINRA rules
The changes come as new Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) rules are set to come into effect in the coming weeks and months. The regulator’s pandemic-era pause on the disclosure and inspection of home offices and other places where brokers and traders carry out significant securities business expires on May 31.
Citi pointed to the end of FINRA’s COVID-related relief as the reason it’s calling workers back. Barclays also said the bank’s return-to-office push coincides with FINRA’s “new regulatory policies.” Michael Roberts, HSBC’s chief executive officer for the U.S. and the Americas, echoed the sentiment, but said the bank is looking to avoid a full-time mandate.
“We will adjust to the FINRA rules, we will make sure whoever needs to be here five days a week will be here five days a week, but I don’t want to decree people coming back,” Roberts told Bloomberg TV on Thursday. “I want them to come back because they want to come back and they feel productive and they feel good about it.”
The Wall Street watchdog is pushing back against the notion that its new rules will require member firms to bring employees back to the office five days a week. FINRA said in a statement Wednesday that the new rules “are intended to provide member firms greater flexibility — not less.”
“FINRA has seen recent statements from firms stating that new, stringent rules from FINRA will require them to bring their workforce back to the office full time,” the regulator said. “This is incorrect.”
Full-time RTO policies on Wall Street
The banking sector, and Wall Street banks in particular, have led the full-time return-to-office push among corporations.
JPMorgan Chase ended its hybrid-work policy for managing directors in April 2023. In a memo to staff, the bank’s operating committee said “leaders play a critical role in reinforcing our culture and running our businesses,” and underscored the importance of their visibility on the floor and in client meetings.
“I completely understand why someone doesn’t want to commute an hour and a half every day, totally got it,” JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon told The Economist last July. “Doesn’t mean they have to have a job here either.”
Goldman Sachs has also taken a hardline stance on remote work. It was among the first to ask employees to come back to the office five days a week, and has since reiterated the expectation that staff spend the work-week at their desks.
Goldman CEO David Solomon has long been a vocal critic of remote work, calling it an “aberration” in 2021. “This is not ideal for us and it’s not a new normal,” Solomon said at a Credit Suisse Group conference that year, Bloomberg reported. “It’s an aberration that we are going to correct as quickly as possible.”
Bank of America and UBS also require staff in certain divisions, including traders or branch employees, to be in the office five days a week.
Many banks, including Santander, Deutsche Bank, and Morgan Stanley, have maintained their hybrid policies.