Will the City ever learn to love working from home?

HSBC is the latest financial institution to turn against hybrid working - which is bad news for us all, says James Moore

- James Moore

A workplace counterrevolution is underway, and HSBC is the latest to join it – by issuing a back-to-the-office order to its senior staff.

The London-listed bank, which reported a 29 per cent slump in second-quarter profits, is turning away from hybrid working and wants those bearing the august title of managing director and up to “set an example”.

You can bet their underlings will heed that. It's inevitable at a big financial institution staffed by ambitious people who are naturally attuned to “how things are done around here”. The City is the kind of place you get with the programme or get out.

So how long before four days in the office turns into five? Not long, I suspect.

That’s assuming HSBC can find enough desks for everyone: there have been reports of shortages as it prepares to move from its Canary Wharf tower to a new home in the City of London, near St Paul’s Cathedral. Some of the big US bulge-bracket investment banks with famously unforgiving cultures - JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and the like - went back to a full five days a week some time ago.

The CIPD, a professional body for people working in HR, recently issued a report looking at practices a year on from the implementation of the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act 2023.