PwC is ‘tipping the scales’ on hybrid working and will start tracking employee locations
PwC has asked employees to reduce the amount of time they spend working from home and will start tracking their locations to ensure compliance.
The accountancy firm has told its 26,000 UK staff in a memo that from January they will have to be at their desks or working with clients at least three days a week, or 60% of the time.
Previously, employees had to spend two to three days working directly.
Furthermore, to ensure employees aren’t secretly working from home (or at the beach) when they shouldn’t be, the company will track how often they work in the office, similar to how it tracks their billable hours.
Workers will be sent information about their “personal work location data” every month, which will even be shared with their internal career advisors, according to the report. Financial Times.
A company spokesperson confirmed Luck that this announcement only affects employees in the UK.
“Working face-to-face is hugely important to a people-centric business like ours and this new policy will help us organise our working hours throughout the week with clients and colleagues,” said Laura Hinton, managing partner at PwC UK, in a statement.
“This is right for our business and our people, as we focus on customer service, training, learning and development,” Hinton concluded, stressing that this does not mark the end of flexible working at the company.
“We continue to offer flexibility through hybrid working.”
Staff protest RTO
PwC did not confirm whether new measures were being introduced to prevent workers from shirking their current company duties.
However, Hinton’s memo argues that there is currently inconsistency in how workers interpret company policies, and that by tracking who participates — and who doesn’t — management can ensure policies are applied “fairly and consistently” across the business.
“We all benefit from the positive impact of a combined approach, but the previous guidance of at least two to three days a week remains open to interpretation,” she wrote in the memo. FT.
The new policy is as follows: study shows that London workers are only in the office half the week—less than many other major cities around the world.
Partly because workers are resisting their bosses’ mandated office visits: While London employers require employees to come to work an average of 3.1 days a week, employees actually only show up 2.7 days.
While the return to in-person work has been particularly “slow” in the UK capital, according to a report from Centre for Cities – Toronto was the only major city rated as performing worse – the issue of employees dodging RTO requirements has become a global phenomenon.
Even in Sydney, where workers face the toughest RTO policy of working four days a week, they only go to the office 2.8 days.
Similarly, in Singapore, workers are required to work in the office 3.6 days a week—but are only physically present at the company 3.2 days.
RTO tightens
While PwC’s location-tracking measures are unusual, many large companies have begun to tighten up on remote work after failing to convince employees to voluntarily spend more time in the office.
Earlier this year, rival firm EY officially began tracking keycard entry data collected by cameras to track how often employees come into the office.
Similarly, Dell is offering its employees red flag for not swiping enough of their badges. Meanwhile, Amazon is giving end of “coffee card” by setting a minimum work obligation on office workdays.
To that end, TikTok even launched its own internal app, “MyRTO” Monitor office attendance and ask them to explain absences.
At the same time, a growing number of failed CEOs are taking the path of least resistance: Witnessing the negative impact of RTO orders on employees engagementkeep and recruitmentMany people are softening their attitudes about working from home.
KPMG surveyed CEOs of US companies with revenues of at least $500 million and found that only One-third look forward to returning to the office in the next three years.
This marks a complete change from their stance last year, when 62% of CEOs surveyed predicted that working from home would end by 2026.
