(Bloomberg) – About two dozen Metro Bank employees tested the company’s new approach to office life this week, giving them an early taste of what hybrid work can look like.
Until 8:30 a.m. outside the bank’s Moorgate branch in the City of London, colleagues from the Financial Crimes Investigation Commission greeted each other in person on Thursday after a year and a half of telecommunications. Upon entering the building, they turned left and went through the glass gate before descending to the newly opened basement office below the branch.
The new location is part of the bank’s comprehensive asset reform as the company adopts a hybrid work model. It vacated its former separate office building and created some space above — and in some cases — some of its branches.
The bank, which employs about 3,000 office workers, has 1,100 desks under the new hybrid system. From September 13, teams can access the offices through a booking system that allows employees to book a schedule at multiple locations as early as six weeks.
Most of the 26 employees – some of whom started working in the bank during epidemics and had never been seen inside a Metro Bank office before – seemed to accept the notion that they recognized the flexibility provided by the new system.
Metro Bank has taken more dramatic steps than most companies to adjust its operations to a world where epidemic telecommunications is increasingly common.
Three years after a decade-long lease, Metro Bank moved out of a building near St Paul’s Cathedral in London last year when the epidemic spread, paying 41 41 million (US $ 56 million) to relocate 900 employees.
This change represents an increasingly dramatic way for some banks to reconsider their office requirements. Other UK banks such as HSBC Holdings and Lloyds Banking Group have reduced their ownership footprint, while Standard Chartered has signed an agreement with IWG, a flexible office leaseholder, to provide office space closer to where its employees live.
“Working at a branch does not mean that you will be affected by the activities that take place at the branches.” The only difference is that when you enter the building, you have a different entrance and exit.
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