Spanish-owned bank Santander has toughened up its approach to hybrid working, telling its staff to spend the equivalent of three days a week at its offices across Britain.
In details sent to 10,000 office-based staff last week, Santander said its current policy of letting them work two days a week at one of its sites was being replaced by an attendance requirement of 12 days a month — in essence, three days a week.
The move came in the same week that professional services firm PwC told its 26,000 employees in Britain that they had to be at one of its offices or client sites “a minimum of three days a week”, up from two to three days previously.
Employers seem to be aiming to tip the balance of hybrid working towards three days on site, after struggling to entice staff to break their Covid working habits.
However, banks including Lloyds have agreed to let office staff work from home up to three days a week, and five days over the summer.
Santander’s staff have been given until the end of the year to meet the new rule, which is intended to get them back to their desks, but also allow more flexibility than a formal three-day week requirement. The bank told employees that working from offices was “vital in supporting and developing our people, especially those at the earlier stages of their career”.
Mike Regnier, chief executive of the UK bank, works from his family home in Harrogate, Yorkshire, at least one day a week.
The new approach affects those who work in offices — rather than branches — including 4,500 staff at Santander’s new hub in Milton Keynes and another of its main employment centres in London, where 1,000 people are based.
A year ago, Regnier had said that he hoped the opening of the new office in the £150 million Unity Place complex in Milton Keynes would encourage staff to break the habit they were forced into during lockdowns of working from home. His contract says Milton Keynes is his primary workplace.