Barclays the latest to harden line on office attendance rules

Barclays has become the latest blue chip firm to tighten its office attendance policy, asking staff to attend the office a minimum of three days a week.

The British-headquartered lender unveiled a more stringent approach to hybrid working in a memo to staff earlier this week, which cut the minimum number of days staff can work from home from three down to two.

Many Barclays employees – including those in its client-facing and investment banking divisions – already work four or five days a week days in the office, but the official, company-wide policy had only mandated two days.

The decision to raise that to three, first reported by the Financial Times, comes as several major UK firms wrestle with their approach to hybrid working with after effects of the pandemic moving further into the rear view mirror.

Earlier this month, City AMrevealed WPP boss Mark Read had told his 100,000-strong workforce that, from April, they will need to work for the office at least four days a week .

The move – announced via a company-wide memo – prompted a fierce backlash from Read’s staff, culminating in a public petition attracting nearly 20,000 signatures.

And shortly after WPP unveiled its new policy, Barclays rival Lloyds announced that senior staff might have their bonuses rescinded or cut if they do not work from the office at least twice a week. The UK’s largest mortgage lender told bosses it expected them to set an example for younger staff.

Elsewhere in the finance sector, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs were early adopters of the return to a five-day week in the office, revealing the emergence of a divide between investment banks and their retail counterparts.

Goldman boss David Solomon labelled working from home as an “aberration” as far back as 2021, when many other white-collar employers did not even have a clear hybrid working policy.

Meanwhile Jamie Dimon, the veteran boss of JP Morgan, has previously declared himself a “sceptic” of working from home, and recently threw his weight behind Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s move to force all federal workers to work full-time in the office.

A spokesman for Barclays said: “At Barclays, we recognise the benefits of balancing flexibility for colleagues with the importance of working together to collaborate in our physical locations. Our minimum time in office requirements vary between business areas depending on the nature of work and needs of the business.”