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BT is mandating a return to the office three days a week from January as chief executive Allison Kirkby continues her attempts to turn around the UK telecoms group.
She said its existing “three together, two wherever” hybrid working guidance would become policy that office-based staff would be “accountable for following”, and that data from employee passcards would be shared with managers so it would be “clear who isn’t meeting the requirements”, in a memo seen by the Financial Times.
The move follows a number of crackdowns on remote working which became common practice during the Covid-19 pandemic. The UK government in October decided civil servants must spend at least 60 per cent of their working hours in the office, and big tech group Amazon in September told staff they must return to the office five days a week from the start of next year.
BT has about 50,000 office-based staff in the UK. The memo, which was also sent to office-based staff in Ireland, Hungary and India, said the move would not change existing formal alternative arrangements such as agreed flexible working patterns and workplace adjustments related to disability or carers.
In the October email Kirkby said: “Current attendance levels are not going to help us to transform BT Group, or nurture a more integrated, collaborative culture. This is essential for the future of our business, the development of our people, and the service of our customers.”
She added that 35 per cent of BT’s office-based people were “only coming in one day a week or not at all, and overall, an average of 1.7 days a week in the office”.
The FTSE 100 company’s insights showed the people coming together at least three days a week were highest performing and most engaged, the chief executive — who started in February — said.
John Ferrett, a national secretary at the union Prospect, said it was consulting on the change with BT to try to ensure an implementation which benefits both the company and its members but questioned the “necessity and wisdom” of a stricter approach. He added that it would have a “detrimental impact” on recruitment and retention.
“Of particular concern to us is the use of passcard data as an enforcement and monitoring tool for office attendance which we see as wholly disproportionate,” Ferrett said.
The union would be seeking assurances from BT as to how the data is used and stored, he added, warning the “impact on trust across the organisation will be significant”.
The Communication Workers Union has also been engaged in discussions with BT on the use of building entry data as a way of monitoring the policy to ensure it is not used in a punitive way, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The stricter approach follows the group investing in multimillion-pound upgrades and new offices across the country.
Providing managers with attendance data would mean leaders could have better conversations with their teams on hybrid working and it will be up to them to decide on any next steps, said a person familiar with BT’s approach, who added the company continued to consult with the unions.
Kirkby in the memo said colleagues being with each other and customers “really matters” and was “not presenteeism”, adding that “the smallest of interactions can be incredibly meaningful, and the positive difference that those interactions make to our culture is enormous”. Most customer-facing colleagues were already back five days a week, she added.
BT said in a statement: “We have had guidance in place to support a hybrid approach to office-based work since 2022 and are now making this a company-wide policy.”
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