Banks Might Be First Industry To Mandate Full Return-to-Office

Not sure if it was bound to happen, and also not sure if just because there are mandates the office world will return to pre-Covid occupancy levels, but

Bisnow May 24, 2024 reported that “Citigroup, HSBC and Barclays are among the financial institutions planning to tell workers that a return to five days a week in the office is imminent.” Part of this push is due to the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, which monitors investment banks for standards and ethics, may be reverting back to pre-Covid workplace monitoring. This might be too difficult or costly to do with home offices. “Meanwhile, some of the largest banks on Wall Street, such as JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs have been requiring full-time office work for months.”  My own opinion is there will be a lot of exceptions to these mandates if you have a very valued employee faced with 3-4 hours of daily commute who threatens to go to a more workplace-friendly competitor…and many of these financial institutions have been downsizing their office space…