Gioia McCarthy, Bank of America's market president for San Francisco and the East Bay, is trying to make it fun for employees to come into the office five days a week.
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BofA may be on the vanguard. Half of company leaders recently surveyed by Microsoft say their company already requires, or plans to require, that employees return to full-time work in the office within the next year. Those expectations could run headlong into the survey’s other finding that 51% of current hybrid employees are considering a shift to full remote work, while 57% of remote employees are considering a shift to hybrid work. And various surveys have reported large percentages of remote or hybrid employees saying they'd quit if told they will have to return to the office full time.
Comments from BofA employees criticizing the move, some using strong language, are already piling up on Blind, a social media site where verified employees can post anonymously.
Bank of America and other employers seeking a full return to office may face special challenges in the Bay Area, where tech employers are embracing hybrid work models or in the case of Salesforce and other employers, a work-from-anywhere policy.
“Tech workers are in an unusually strong bargaining position,” said Ted Egan, chief economist in the controller’s office for the City and County of San Francisco. “It looks like employees are driving this issue as long as it’s a really tight labor market.”
Visa and Uber are among the Bay Area’s major employers that want employees to come into the office at least half the time. But BofA is taking a different tack.
“We are a work-from-work company,” McCarthy said, adding that the bank’s benefits package provides a lot of flexibility for employees needing time off for parental leave, sick time, bereavement and other circumstances.
