Citi orders underperforming remote workers back into the office

“You can see how productive someone is or isn’t, and if they’re not productive, we’ll take them back to the office or site and give them the coaching they need until they’re productive and get back up,” Fraser said.

This lack of productivity could be blamed on the silent cessation, the term you jour that describes doing the bare minimum of what is asked of you at work – and not a little bit more. Proponents have referred to it as “acting your pay”.

Fraser didn’t say how many workers were ordered back, but the data shows that an outsized lack of motivation among remote workers — or, to use another name, a quietly ending epidemic — is a myth. Slack’s think tank, Future Forum, surveyed 10,000 employees worldwide last October and found that those with full schedule flexibility had 29% higher productivity scores than employees without any flexibility. In addition, employees with flexible working hours reported a 53% better ability to concentrate and three times better work-life balance than employees with rigid office protocols.

Given that there’s no shortage of companies staying optimistic about a return to the office, despite ample evidence to suggest it’s unnecessary – to the point that some are tracking their employees’ productivity while they’re away from home Working from home – it’s not unlikely that other companies could follow in Citi’s footsteps.

When Westin Fraser asked about the long-term effectiveness of remote work, she first acknowledged the “win-win situations.”

“I want to start by acknowledging that we are going through a very human crisis during the pandemic, [and hybrid work] has been an advantage for us to attract, retain and get the best out of our talent,” she said. “We measure productivity very carefully and I am incredibly proud of our people and what they have done to support customers and communities during some very difficult times around the world.”

Nonetheless, she pays attention to different needs in different roles and makes sure they are addressed so employees can “bring excellence to customers and to the job.”

However, she believes there is an “important balance” in performing hybrid work, and emphasizes the value of collaboration and training that workers can only experience in person.

Pro-hybrid, anti-silent quitting

At various points during the pandemic, Citi has cast doubt on his return to office. In March 2021, it became the first major US bank to introduce a long-term hybrid model that included “Zoom-free Fridays” and an operational holiday on May 28, dubbed “Citi Reset Day.”

But in early 2022, Citi became something banking dive dubbed “the Wall Street lender with the toughest office reopening policy” as it threatened to immediately fire workers who failed to comply with its vaccination mandate.

By the end of the year, Fraser said wealth that competing banks’ insistence on full-time on-site work — including Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan — feels “a bit 1980s.”

“Why do we have to have our junior bankers … in the office late at night when they’re working on a deal?” Fraser said on an episode of assets Guided Next Podcast. “Once they’ve done the work together, they can do it at home.”

So it seems that Fraser is pro-hybrid but against quietly quitting: remote work is fair if done in a balanced way and while maintaining productivity levels. After all, she expects “a world with a fairly tight labor supply” in the future, she said in Davos. “We are not seeing any returnees leaving the workforce in numbers we expected, despite the looming recession and inflationary challenges.”

Therefore, creating a hybrid arrangement that works for everyone will be crucial. “I think we have to keep listening to our people and finding the right balance,” she said. “If you don’t listen to them, you run the risk of getting in some trouble.”

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