75% Of U.K. Finance Chiefs Demand Employees Return To Office

A July 2023 KPMG study found only 10% of financial staff wanted to work full-time in the office. This reluctance has hurt occupancy rates in city centers.

More than three quarters of Britain’s financial sector bosses plan to push workers to spend more time in the office over the next 12 months, according to a survey of 150 industry leaders by KPMG U.K.

The findings shared exclusively with Reuters also showed more than a third of those bosses will expect employees to be in the office at least four days a week.

Many employers have struggled to entice large swathes of their workforces back to the office since the pandemic, when lockdowns forced millions to work from home.

An earlier study by KPMG in July 2023 found just 10% of financial services staff wanted to work in the office full time.

But the reluctance to return to pre-pandemic working patterns has crushed occupancy rates at many expensive city center headquarters and junior staff are finding it tougher to collaborate with more experienced colleagues, some bosses argue.

Some are also worried about the regulatory and risk pressures posed by hybrid working, though 58% of those polled said flexible working could help them be more competitive.

One of Amazon’s top executives told staff this month they were welcome to work elsewhere if they objected to the firm’s five-day-per-week in-office policy, echoing similar sentiments expressed by executives at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan.

The survey respondents said they planned to monitor office attendance in various ways, with 45% planning to track staff using swipe systems and just under a third saying they would install digital cameras.

“There is no one-size fits all approach to this and businesses are still trying to find the hybrid working sweet spot more than two years on from the pandemic,” Karim Haji, global and U.K. head of financial services at KPMG, said.

“Leaders see the commercial value of hybrid working models, particularly when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, but they are still expecting greater office attendance in the coming months to retain collaboration with colleagues and clients,” he said.

(Reporting by Sinead Cruise; Editing by Mark Potter)