Citi summons unproductive remote workers to office for coaching

Citigroup Inc. has one of the more flexible policies on Wall Street when it comes to remote work. But if a worker’s productivity dips, they can expect to spend more time in the office.

“You can see how productive someone is or isn’t, and if they’re not being productive we bring them back to the office, or back to the site, and we give them the coaching they need until they bring the productivity back up again,” Chief Executive Jane Fraser said Tuesday at a Bloomberg event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Fraser has offered most staffers the ability to work remotely at least some of the time on a permanent basis, with most Citigroup employees expected to be in the office three days a week. The CEO has said parts of Wall Street’s insistence on full-time office attendance feels dated, arguing in an interview with Fortune last month that workers will “vote with their feet” on such policies. 

Citi’s experience of remote work has underlined the importance of flexibility but also the value of in-person collaboration and coaching. But there was no need to go back to a working model from the 1980s, Fraser said.

“There’s an important balance here,” she said. “We’re going to have keep listening to our people and getting that balance right but if you don’t listen to them, you’re in danger of having some problems.”

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