Reporting in The Times on Wednesday (21 May) stated that the financial firm sent a memo to 24,000 staff in the bank's commercial and high street divisions saying: “Consistently not meeting 60% office attendance will be considered in an individual’s overall performance assessment … which could lead to variable pay being impacted”.
The bank has committed to managing staff attendance more closely from September, including giving managers more data about employees who have failed to come in at least three days a week.
For Gemma Dale, senior HR lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, this latest HSBC announcement is a further example of presence and performance being conflated.
She told HR magazine: “Following a policy and office presence is not a good way to assess the extent to which someone is contributing and productive.”
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Dale added: “It is unlikely that this can be challenged, but that will not necessarily mean that this is not going to lead to unhappy employees, and hence disengagement or even retention risks.”
Instead, Dale said, employers must reflect on why employees might not be complying with office attendance rules.
The bank first announced that staff would have to come in at least 60% of the time of their working hours in 2023.
Dale continued: “Is this simply blatant disobedience, or something more? For example, are employees not seeing the importance of attendance, or finding that they are able to do their work effectively in the provided environment?”
For Debbie Mitchell, HR transformation senior manager at consultancy Lace Partners, while the momentum appears to be for employers forcing a complete return-to-office (RTO) policy, firms need to consider that flexible approaches that could improve access to skills in an era of skills shortages.
Mitchell said: “Senior HR leaders are the critical friend to senior leadership teams. It's in this role that HR colleagues can influence the 'bosses' and shape their decisions.
“They can help them to understand the pros and cons of the debate, but in particular, seeing it from employees' perspective.”
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The key to doing this effectively, she said, is to collect data, see productivity trends, understand the employee voice and broader labour market mechanisms in order to make the right decisions regarding where work takes place.
According to the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes UK, analysis published on Wednesday (21 May) by the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at King’s College London and King’s Business School, only 42% of workers would agree to a five-day-a-week RTO. This is down from 54% in early 2022.
The proportion of respondents saying they would quit if forced to go in five days a week has doubled from 5% to 10% over the same period. Just 9% of those surveyed indicated that they would resign immediately if an RTO mandate were imposed.
In light of these findings, it’s critical to understand the right way to attract workers back to the office, Mitchell said.
She continued: “Bosses [should] focus on compelling reasons to attract people, rather than force them into the workplace. They should create workspaces, curate work events and encourage collaboration, delivering on things that add value to colleagues.”
