Employee experience
programme manager for future of work and hybrid working of ABN AMRO. Like pretty much every other white-collar business in the country, the Dutch bank moved work from home for the foreseeable future when Covid-19 hit.
Remote work has become entrenched across the banking sector, with supporters attracted by the flexibility it offers staff, especially in back office roles.
65% 85% 26
The percentage of people in the Netherlands working at least partially remotely in 2022, a figure that’s increased around 20% in just two years. Euronews
telecommuting’s modern rebrand – working from home or hybrid working – is a central tenet of many sectors. It was relatively niche before Covid-19, with under 5% of US workers doing their job from home in 2014. The pandemic changed this drastically. With strict lockdowns implemented across the world, firms had to alter their daily working method – in some cases literally overnight. With lockdowns now a thing of the past, however, businesses have an important choice to make. Do they embrace flexible working policies and trust that their workers – formerly watchable in a cubicle a few metres away – will be as attentive and committed to their tasks? Or do they rule against working from home to the chagrin of many of their employees? The banking industry continues to struggle with these questions. Some institutions, for their part, have implemented a permanent flexible work policy. HSBC, for example, slashed its global office space by 40% in 2021 – with CEO John Hinshaw describing it as a shift towards a more “hybrid model”.
But elsewhere, opinions on working from home are not so rosy. According to a recent survey by KPMG, nearly 70% of bank CEOs expect a full return to the office within three years. David Solomon, boss at Goldman Sachs, described remote work as an “aberration” at the start of 2021. The US, in fact, is one of the main battlegrounds where employees are facing off with executives over the issue. Over in the EU, however, it’s a different story. Midway through 2022, every one of the top 12 European banks was allowing employees to work remotely for part of the week.
The percentage of business leaders that feel hybrid work affects their confidence in employees being productive. Microsoft
The European way
How to explain these distinct transatlantic approaches? Listen to experts and it seems to come down to a fundamental difference in attitude. “It felt that, being that we are a large employer, we had a responsibility to our workforce and to the country not to aid the spread of the virus,” explains Annemarie Matze-Mennes,
Speaking to Matze-Mennes roughly two years since lockdown, there is no doubt that flexible working is here to stay at her employer. Before 2020, ABN AMRO’s staff worked an average of one day a week from home. Nowadays, however, many workers spend the majority of their away from the office. Matze- Mennes is quick to explain that it isn’t that simple though. “ABN AMRO’s flexible working policy is based on the specific activity being undertaken,” she stresses. “We encourage teams to have a discussion about what will be the most effective means of working for each activity. Leaders play an important role in making this a success by encouraging an open discussion and facilitating social cohesion in the team. It is not a ‘one- size-fits-all’ situation.”
It is no surprise that, given its location, ABN AMRO would have such a progressive outlook. Research from mid-2022 has shown that the number of workers either in a fully remote or hybrid model in the Netherlands had gone up by over 20% to 65% in just two years, making it the country with the highest number of partly or fully remote workers in the EU. The country also became the first to bring in legislation declaring that employees have a legal right to request to work from home – stressing that employers must provide a valid reason to deny them.
All the same, Matze-Mennes reiterates that ABN
AMRO’s approach is basically circumstantial. “Work is at the centre of the policy. The work you do and the team you belong to determine whether you work from home or in the office.”
This lack of a one-size-fits-all approach can be troubling for banks as they introduce new ways of working, but the importance of flexibility is reflected by external experts too. As Claire McCartney, a senior policy adviser specialising in flexible working at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), puts it: “The key part of flexible working is looking at options that might work for your setting and piloting different options.”
Productivity paranoia
When looking at the negative reaction of some American banks to working from home, it seems that many perceive flexible working to be a drain on productivity. For instance, JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon told clients that remote work fosters a less honest work environment, where employees are more prone to procrastination.
Many will recognise these sentiments as ‘productivity paranoia’ – a phrase which emerged over lockdown, as managers felt their ability to easily follow employee productivity slip away. These fears are clarified in a
Future Banking /
www.nsbanking.com
Kevin Sloniecki/
Shutterstock.com
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41
