Vast Italian market Eataly set to open in the heart of the City April 20, 2021 The Square Mile will soon be home to vast Italian market Eataly, which has already seen success in cities including New York, Boston, Los Angeles and Chicago. Broadgate Market, London’s largest pedestrianised neighbourhood, will host the 42,000 sq ft venture, which will include take-away, retail, and terrace dining. Eataly is slated to open on 29 [...]
HSBC scraps executive floor in Canary Wharf in favour of hot-desking April 19, 2021 HSBC has scrapped the entire executive floor at its Canary Wharf headquarters in the latest change to its post-pandemic working practices. The 42nd floor, which was previously home to executives, will be used for client meeting rooms and collaborative spaces while top managers will hot desk on the open-plan 40th floor. “Our offices were empty [...]
Rail firms to launch flexible season tickets to lure commuters back to city centres April 16, 2021 Ministers and rail chiefs are finalising a new system of flexible season tickets designed to entice commuters back to city centres as the shift to hybrid working takes off. Cost concerns mean the discounts will be much less generous than for traditional season tickets, to spare the taxpayer from further expenses, the Telegraph has revealed. [...]
No vaccine? Yes, employers can bar you from the office April 15, 2021 As the Covid vaccine rollout is in full swing across Britain, with more 32m Brits having received a first dose, an increasing number of employers hinted in recent weeks that they would require their staff to be vaccinated in order to return to the office. Pimlico Plumbers was the first company in London to publicly [...]
Exclusive: Bank of Ireland UK launches four working hubs in pivot to flexible working April 15, 2021 The Bank of Ireland is the latest company to pivot to a flexible working model with plans to launch four working hubs across the UK. Some 91 per cent of employees surveyed by the bank have indicated they would like to work flexibly in a sign of just how much working patterns have changed amid [...]
Some 1,200 HSBC staff to permanently work from home April 7, 2021 HSBC is moving more than 1,200 staff in the UK to permanent working from home contracts, marking yet another company making major changes to its working patterns post-pandemic. Around 70 per cent of the bank’s 1,800 call centre staff based across England, Wales and Scotland have volunteered to never return to the office, employment union [...]
JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs staffers return to London in droves April 6, 2021 Bankers at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have returned to their London offices in droves, as the UK continues to inch out of lockdown. Around 15 per cent of JP Morgan’s staff in the City – some 1,800 people – went into the office last week, up from about 10 per cent at Christmas. For [...]
Tory MPs urge Boris Johnson to scrap work from home guidance next month March 29, 2021 Conservative MPs have called on Boris Johnson to lift work from home guidance next month to speed up an economic rebound. They argue that with more than half the adult population having received a Covid jab, those who want to return to the office should be allowed to do so. Clarity is yet to emerge [...]
Government to offer free home Covid tests for businesses in back to work push March 28, 2021 The government is set to offer businesses free home test kits for employees, in a bid to get staff back to the workplace after almost a year of home working. In a major expansion of the government’s workplace testing scheme, all businesses with more than 10 employees who cannot offer on-site testing will be eligible [...]
City workers prepare to head back to offices in just eight days time March 21, 2021 Workers are getting ready to head back to the City of London in just over a weeks’ time as the government’s “stay at home” order is relaxed. Investment banks are leading the return to work, with staff set to return to the Square Mile for the first time in months. Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and [...]