Bank of England tells staff to come into office once a week

The Bank of England is moving towards a hybrid model of working with staff coming into the office for one day a week from September.

Joanna Place, its chief operating officer, said that the Bank was trialling plans to encourage more flexible working after the pandemic. Staff said that they would like to continue working from home at least two days a week.

The majority of the bank’s 4,000 staff have been working from home since March last year, when the government first urged people to stay at home and avoid unnecessary travel to the office. Place said that only 5 per cent of the bank’s employees continued to come into the office after the government’s guidelines were announced.

Like many other organisations in the country, it is planning for the future and appears to be moving towards a hybrid model, which will include a mix of home and office working. It is trialling a new set of guidelines.

From September staff will be required to come into the office at least one day a week for “team days” but may work from home for the remainder of the week if they wish.

The move will allow workers to engage in collaborative work and build social capital, which the bank’s former chief economist, Andy Haldane, has repeatedly warned could be a casualty of remote working.

“As we look to the future, and (I hope) leave the many lockdown restrictions behind us, we have an exciting and unique opportunity,” Place said. “ The challenge — though daunting — is to learn from the many successes we have collected over the past year and use them as a springboard to build more effective, collaborative and flexible organisations. Our staff deserve as well as demand this.”