What’s the catch?
“… if you’re a bank boss”.
Regnier still works from home one to two days a week, and has been even more lenient with Santander’s 19,000 UK staff, with office-based workers only expected to be onsite two days a week.
“I don’t think it’s absolutely vital that people spend all five days a week in the office as they did pre-Covid,” Regnier says from his sixth-floor office near Euston station in London. “And, actually, had it not been for Covid, I wouldn’t have accepted this job, because I wouldn’t have wanted to be away from home five days a week in London. That wouldn’t have been good for the family or for me.”
This has helped Regnier, who is paid £3.3m to run the UK’s fifth-largest bank, gain a reputation as an “approachable” boss, according to a former colleague
Nobody should be paid that much but he’s an outlier for the industry in allowing hybrid work at least.
I’m alright with someone being paid that much, so long as they are taxed incrementally and heavily.
I don’t think that he’s an outlier in the UK, WFH is pretty normal here and there are stats to back it up - https://www.forbes.com/uk/advisor/business/remote-work-statistics/
What’s interesting is that 10% of all workers have an option to work remotely, but actually go to the office. I have colleagues like that and they all have their reasons. Some want to get away from kids for a few hours, some need human interaction to avoid falling into depression, etc.
But in general, WFH is normalised these days for many jobs. There are obviously dickhead managers here and there, but they are what you call outliers. And, obviously, there are jobs you can’t do WFH. For example, my partner is a librarian. You can’t do anything job related sitting at home - all the stuff you have to do is in the library.
Interesting. I was talking about the industry (as confirmed in the article), but you made me interested in what his commute time might be. If the sites I checked are right, it’s a 4-hour non-stop drive or 2h45m by train from Harrogate to London. Obviously there are going to be factors other than commute convenience, but that’s pretty high on most people’s priority list, along with cost for people who aren’t paid >$3m/yr. (I wish I could say emissions were an important factor for most people but even among wealthy people who have the most freedom of choice, it’s clearly not.)
The 10% statistic is also interesting but not surprising. Hypothetically if all workers in fields where physically being there isn’t essential had the WFH option, there would have to be at least a few who would prefer to be there in person. Even in North America where commutes are among the worst, there are still those who prefer on-premises work.
People who have to commute for such distances usually rent a small flat in London. They stay in a rented place throughout the working week and then go home for the weekend. I had a colleague like that pre-Covid, he lives on an island and he used to rent a small room in London.
Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how it shakes out in time or in the reality behind the pr piece but the article does specifically mention that that this extends to employees too and that was actually what the quote in the headline was in reference to specifically.
The catch is none of the lobbyists for the over-leveraged real estate companies have gotten to him yet.
Give it time.
Meanwhile,my asshole employer is doubling down on office return. They’re establishing a quota per group. My group is like 75% not near (over 1 hr drive) an ooffice. They want to allow only 15% to be remote. This insanity serves no purpose
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Halifax Bank of Scotland’s bosses at the time – who regulators said had driven a culture of growth at all costs – accumulated £45bn in bad debts that required a £20bn taxpayer bailout after an emergency takeover by Lloyds TSB in 2008.
The change under Lloyds was palpable, Regnier says, with its then chief executive Eric Daniels running a “more measured culture” where power was not held tightly at the very top.
However, Regnier’s father told him that “in the UK, it’s accountants who run industry”, resulting in him taking a combined engineering, economics and management degree at Oxford.
That was later followed by a master’s in business at France’s Insead, where he met other future City figures including the Prudential Regulation Authority’s chief executive, Sam Woods.
That has put UK regulation and the country’s competitiveness front of mind, pushing Regnier to call for big changes from both Conservative and Labour leaders, which could help open up new funding opportunities for his bank post-election.
Age 52Family Married with two teenage children.Education Engineering, economics and management degree at Oxford; MBA at Insead.Last holiday “A long weekend on the coast near Middlesbrough, watching my son play cricket.”Pay £3.3m in 2023.Best advice he’s been given “Start with a ‘why’.”Biggest career mistake “Not gaining more international experience.”Word he overuses “Why … !
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