Senior bankers at Lloyds Banking Group are at risk of having their bonuses cut if they do not meet new office requirements, which require them to be on-site at least two days a week.
The move, which will be unveiled next month ahead of the 2024 financial year bonus distribution, comes at a time when major employers are rolling back remote working arrangements in a bid to encourage more face-to-face collaboration.
Lloyds – which owns Halifax, Lloyds and Bank of Scotland – confirmed it is reassessing office visits as part of its performance-based bonus measures for top staff, including those in hybrid roles who were last year tasked with having 40% of employees in the office to be. their working hours. For most full-time employees, that amounts to at least two days a week.
Ged Nichols, general secretary of the Accord union which represents Lloyds staff, stressed the need to apply bonus-related office policies carefully. “Including a benchmark for meeting the requirement that some employees spend 40% of their working time in the office should not pose any problems if applied fairly, and is sensitive to the circumstances of individuals where mature and reasonable judgments are made applied.”
A wide range of companies, especially those headquartered in the US such as JP Morgan and Amazon, have recently implemented stricter back-to-office mandates. Supermarket chain Asda has introduced a mandatory three-day office week for thousands of workers in Leeds and Leicester, while Santander is finalizing attendance requirements for its 10,000 UK employees.
Some employees are pushing back. Several Starling Bank employees resigned after being told to come into the office more often, and almost 6,000 people have signed a Change.org petition calling on advertising giant WPP to withdraw the four-day office rule. WPP says it believes its policies are “good for the long-term interests of the company,” and acknowledges they may not be universally popular.
A Lloyds spokesperson noted that the bank is “proud to offer a leading approach to flexible working”, but stressed the importance of ensuring the bank can still meet its strategic objectives and customer commitments. Lloyds has also announced a new bonus program involving 33,000 of its lowest-paid employees, potentially delivering bigger payouts for the top performers among them.
Up to 1,000 of the lowest-paid employees – including junior employees across 932 branches – could receive additional bonuses on top of a standard group-wide allocation if managers believe they have “exceeded expectations” or had a “transformative impact” on the company .
Nichols welcomed the extension of performance-based incentives to lower-paid workers, but stressed that higher pay “is not made possible by reducing the value of standard pay for everyone else”.
The bonuses for the 2024 financial year will be awarded shortly after CEO Charlie Nunn announces the annual figures on February 20. This new benchmark for office attendance is widely expected to have a tangible impact on some employees’ payouts, underscoring the ongoing tension between flexible working and business-led demand for greater personal collaboration.