Deutsche Bank staff in the City set for three-day work from home week
Deutsche Bank plans a post-pandemic policy for its City staff that allows them to work from home for up to three days a week. The implementation of the hybrid working model is part of a wider initiative to encourage flexible working at the German financial giant.
“It’s a range of 40 per cent to 60 per cent. We think, of flexibility, and it’ll really be up to the employee, but in a structured way with the manager so that we sort of know when people are expected to come to the office,” explained Deutsche Bank CFO James von Moltke.
The move comes after Deutsche Bank posted its highest quarterly profit since 2014, demonstrating that with the right infrastructure in place and evidence that it does not hamper productivity, banks are willing to allow a flexible working from home model moving forward.
Responses
Oliver Blower, CEO of fintech firm VoxSmart, welcomed the move from Deutsche Bank, telling City PM that “there is little hard evidence to suggest that traders have been any less productive whilst working from home.”
“It is therefore really encouraging to see major financial institutions taking a leadership role and encouraging their staff to work and communicate from anywhere,” Blower added.
Meanwhile, Clare Flynn Levy, founder and chief executive of Essentia Analytics, who used to run around $1bn of pension funds for Deutsche Asset Management, said that “financial institutions embracing flexible work is another example of long-overdue modernisation in the industry.”
“2020 taught every firm that not only is the workforce capable of running business as usual from outside the office, but that granting individuals autonomy over their own work environments leads to greater productivity and employee satisfaction, while interrupting biased behavior like groupthink and introverts’ contributions being overlooked,” Flynn Levy said.
Deutsche Bank’s decision comes hot on the heels of post-Covid working plans from the other top investment banks, with J.P. Morgan & Goldman Sachs being among those who are returning to a predominantly office working environment.