Credit Suisse to allow its employees decide on how they structure their teleworking arrangements

From the end of the year, The Way We Work initiative that Credit Suisse launched globally will in principle allow employees to work permanently away from the office. The initiative should enable better a work-life balance, the bank’s press release stated. Between July and December 2020, and as part of its ‘New Ways of Working’ experiment, the bank studied several work organization formulas being tested by its Swiss employees across all its business divisions. The results were positive, with a higher rate of ‘satisfaction’ among employees ‘adopting the most flexible work arrangements,’ notes the Swiss bank. The study also showed ‘that productivity is highest among employees who opted for the most flexible work models’. On average, employees now want to work two-thirds of their working time away from the company premises. Decisions on how and where employees wish to work will be largely left to the staff themselves. During the Covid-19 restrictions, between 70% and 90% of employees worked remotely. Employees will also be able to decide, in conjunction with their managers, which days they want to work in the office. However, the office will remain important for interaction and for ‘conveying the company culture’, a bank spokesperson told the La Tribune de Genève publication.