As financial services firms prepare to welcome the bulk of their staff back to physical office space, they face an unusual problem: most employees don’t want to be there.
After the Swiss government loosened pandemic restrictions, big Swiss employers like UBS and Credit Suisse have teed up plans to gently bring thousands of bankers and staff back to Paradeplatz and outposts like Opfikon, Altstetten, and Uetlihof.
The nub is that very few employees want to, finews.com has learned. This is despite precautions like limits of how many people are allowed in elevators, one-way circuits hallways, deactivating every second workspace for distancing, and disinfecting desks daily and certified as «clean».
At Swiss Re, where half of the 3,000 people who normally work at its newly-refurbished Mythenquai offices were invited back the past two weeks, just six percent actually showed, a person familiar with the matter told finews.com. A spokesman for the reinsurer didn’t comment on turnout but said its flexible working arrangements which pre-date the pandemic ensured continuous operations.
Survey Says "No, Thanks»
At Avaloq, a banking software firm that employs roughly 2,000 people, 16 percent of staff surveyed internally said they didn’t want to return at all, a person familiar with the responses told finews.com. All told, 68 percent of its staff said they want to spend two days per week or less at the company’s offices in Manegg, on the outskirts of Zurich.
Avaloq «assumes that employees will work as much as two days per week from home, provided their role and security measures allow,» operating chief Pascal Foehn told finews.com. This represents a reduction in expectations for a new Zurich «hub» currently being refurbished where Avaloq locked in more than 1,000 workspaces before the pandemic.
Complicates Handover
Up to one-third of UBS' staff will remain at home further out, operating chief Sabine Keller-Busse said recently. This complicates both the entrée of new CEO Ralph Hamers in November as well as plans to refurbish three floors of the Swiss bank's 10,000-square-foot wealth management offices in Weehawken, NJ. The project, scheduled for completion next year, has since baked in physical distancing measures.
In Switzerland, UBS and Credit Suisse began enabling employees to return this month, with safety measures including breaking up teams in alternating weeks and limiting in-person meetings in favor of online tools. The lack of enthusiasm from many Swiss bankers jibes with results from the City of London, where two-thirds of traders and bankers don't want to return to Canary Wharf full-time, «Financial News» reported last week.
Voluntary or Mandatory?
At Swiss banks, returns have until now been voluntary – but firms are upping the pressure to come back in August, several Swiss bankers said. They may not have to, according to business psychologist Christian Fichter, who said employees will eventually want to meander back to physical offices of their own accord when the more tiresome aspects of working from home surface.
«Our concentration is poorer, we find it more difficult to separate work and leisure, but the most important factor is missing out on informal channels of communication and office politics,» Fichter told finews.com.
Employees need affirmation of a job well done – and if they can’t find one online or elsewhere, they will be prepared to return, he notes. And once a few staff trickle back and begin marking territory, the overwhelming majority will follow, Fichter said.
Florian Wicki contributed reporting
