A memo has gone out that says: people must be in the office FOUR days a week “to set the tone from the top” as “in-person interactions are essential to how we lead and deliver for our customers."
Riiiiiight.
When MDs at most US banks are in five days.
It’s not that funny
It’s very funny. Hilarious, even.
Who is coming in at all anymore? What teams are even impacted?
If you’re in a chopping block team, why would you come in when you probably already have your next, better job lined up? DND on… Close that laptop and nap, baby.
Leave Canary Wharf. Work in Eltham
What was the name of that Amazon engineer who bought a boat during covid and worked remotely, sailing around the world?
Leave Canary Wharf, leave Eltham, go to Bikini Atoll.
I don’t think HSBC has an office there.
The most interesting thing is that in Europe, there is genuinely not enough desks. On trading floor in HK, some of the non-flow stuff is squeezed. Literally 4 people on 3 desks.
Sorry for double posting, but I couldn’t make this up:
https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/hsbc-takes-extra-space-canary-wharf-due-hq-squeeze-2025-08-08/
I mean, I wouldn’t be in the shoes of the persons who’s done the seating plan 
Problem is banks don’t think long-term. As much as they want everyone to believe they do, they only look at now. Most banks don’t have space anymore to increase to more days
So they really over hired after the pandemic and kept all those head counts around all this time?
Presumably like everyone else they assumed that things would go back to normal quite quickly, post 2021.
They didn’t anticipate the war in Ukraine prolonging the recession. If we’re ever coming back from that in the UK/EU. I guess they threw in the towel on expecting things to go back to normal
That’s truly why I worked from home the company ran out of space we had desk reservations to fill out every day! I told the management team I can go on site anytime make a request eager.
