Allow UBS to allow most employees to work continuously from home and office

UBS expects two-thirds of its employees to mix permanent work from home and office. Betting on the approach will give Swiss lenders an advantage over Wall Street banks when hiring.

The move to embrace the hybrid work model has been led by chief executive Ralph Hamers and his top executives, according to people familiar with the issue, and underscores the growing rift with a tougher approach taken by many U.S. banks.

The Swiss bank has decided that due to supervisory rules and only employees who have to perform duties in the office to perform specific tasks, such as traders and branch staff, will have little or no flexibility in work practices.

According to people familiar with the subject, an internal analysis of 72,000 employees worldwide has shown that approximately two-thirds are in positions that will allow hybrid work.

The position of UBS is shared by European members like France Societe Generale, but this is in stark contrast to the approach taken by some US banks, such as JPMorgan Chas, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, to order New York employees to return to work.

After more than a year in which most bankers have worked in home offices, spare rooms and kitchen desks, UBS’s decision indicates that a pandemic legacy could be a basic division of labor practices between European and American banks.

Headquarters in the United Kingdom HSBC and Standard Chartered to reduce the footprint of offices and prevent city commuting, workers have announced plans to work in places that are close to home or “close to home”.

In an internal message to staff last week, when seen by the Financial Times, UBS said it was “committed to providing flexibility for hybrid work (a mix of office and home work) where mission, tasks and location allow”.

However, employees who offer hybrid jobs will also need to go to the office for certain activities, as agreed with their supervisor.

The bank, headquartered in Zurich, has not yet determined when employees will have to return to the office. UBS does not want to comment.

In contrast, Goldman employees have been re-assigned to the bank’s New York headquarters, and JPMorgan expects U.S. employees to return to their regular office hours from July 6.

It has been James Gorman, CEO of Morgan Stanley most stress on a call to return staff to the office. “You can go to a restaurant in New York, you can come into the office and we want you in the office,” he said at the company’s last event.

Citigroup is one of the largest banks to present a hybrid US work model so far. Employees can work from home up to two days a week.

Despite joining Broadgate 5 (one of the largest buildings in the city of London) five years ago, UBS has long been looking for more employees to work with from home.

Last year he experimented with issuing London-based merchants augmented reality headphones, so that they can recreate the experience of working on a commercial floor without leaving their home.