CEOs are very good at saying things they don’t really mean. Many are as good, if not better than politicians at this.
Case in point: DEI. While execs spent hours on calls – with shareholders, with staff – talking up the importance of diversity and inclusion, many have quietly shelved their DEI policies. This has been going on for a couple of years now, but the trend accelerated in recent weeks, especially in the US. Turns out their commitment was only skin deep.
Another case: flexible working. Over the past decade, lots of firms put flexible working clauses into job ads and staff contracts, treating it as a perk, like free health insurance or subsidised travel. Another policy that is steadily unravelling.
Banks are leading the charge, with the likes of Barclays, Citi, Lloyds and HSBC urging staff to spend time in the office.
Some CEOs are subtler than others. Here’s JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon a few days ago (forgive the French):
“Don’t give me this shit that work-from-home-Friday works. I call a lot of people on Fridays, and there’s not a goddamn person you can get a hold of.
“The young generation is being damaged by this. They may or may not be in your particular staff, but they are being left behind. They’re being left behind socially, ideas, meeting people.”
The spirit, if not the letter of Dimon’s remarks is shared by many in the banking world, a centuries-old industry with clearly-defined metrics for success, and which presumably sees WFH staff falling behind on them.
But for the tech sector, things are more abstruse. For one thing, some tech firms’ success is pinned on a degree of remote work subsisting. What’s the need for Zoom if all your meetings are in person? Why order a Deliveroo to your home, or take out a Netflix subscription, if you’re never there?
On top of that, there’s the added flexibility to hiring. If you run a startup in a niche industry, it’s handy to cast the net wider and be able to hire from anywhere, rather than in a five-mile radius from the office.
Fintechs are caught between these two worlds, and face pressures in both directions. Which is perhaps why Revolut boss Nik Storonsky tried to square the circle this week when he told staff both how excited he was to see them in their big new office (which has cost them millions) but that he had not given up on hybrid working.
As Revolut matures, it’s essential that certain key functions like risk and compliance can work together in person. But unlike rival Monzo, the bank’s growth has always been international-first, not UK-first (most of its customers are outside Britain) so it helps to be able to recruit anywhere in Europe at speed.
That also means being able to recruit from a wide range of cultures, languages and ethnicities. There are two dozen official languages in Europe – if a CEO only hires from one or two of them, they thin out the prospective talent pool at their own peril.
So while DEI and WFH have become unpopular acronyms across the pond, I don’t see them fading from common parlance in the UK just yet.
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