ANZ bankers stay home for years in back-to-office struggle

About 100 ANZ bankers haven’t worked in the office for years a review has found, in a sign that it’s not just CBA struggling to lure staff back to their buildings.

A group of bankers at the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group haven’t worked in their office for years, in a sign that it’s not just Commonwealth Bank that is struggling to lure some staff back to their buildings following the pandemic.

An internal review at ANZ last month flagged more than a hundred employees who had not returned to their office desks since the spread of Covid-19 prompted nearly half of the country’s workforce to transition to remote working, a source familiar with the situation said.

“ANZ is trying to find out why and get to the bottom of whether people have moved interstate or offshore,” the person, who asked not to be identified because they were not allowed to speak to the media, said.

A second person familiar with the situation said that the vast majority of people in the cohort had been found to have remote working arrangements agreed with their team leaders, and as of Tuesday only about a dozen remained under investigation.

A spokesman for the Melbourne-based lender, which supports a hybrid model but expects staff to spend 50 per cent of their time in the office, said the number of staff working in the office was “getting stronger all the time”.

“However, there are a very small number of our 20,000 Australian employees who have not attended the office at all since November 2022,” he said.

“We’re keen to understand more about why that is.”

He added that employees were “increasingly” showing they were keen to be in the office at least a few days a week “and we continue to focus on making sure the office environment supports this new hybrid world in which we are working”.

The impact of remote work on productivity levels among the group is unknown.

The push earlier this year by the banks to bring workers back to the office has faced resistance among some banking staff and from the Finance Sector Union.

ANZ’s largest rival, CBA, is facing a legal challenge to its edict that requires employees return to the office for at least half their time each month, as the union says there was no proper consultation before the mandate.

Commonwealth Bank is facing a legal challenge to its return to the workplace edict. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Nikki Short

The union also says many workers feel they can be more productive at home and they want flexible arrangements that address staff’s individual circumstances instead of the bank’s blanket edict.

ANZ’s other two major rivals, National Australia Bank and Westpac, also expect staff to be in the office at least two to three days a week and declined to comment on whether they were experiencing similar experiences with staff holding out on returning to in-person work.

With Australia‘s unemployment rate near multi-decade lows, banks are struggling to find qualified personnel, especially for advancing their technological infrastructure. This has compelled them to embrace greater flexibility, which is more valued by workers after the pandemic.

Workers at NAB this week voted overwhelmingly in support of a workplace agreement that enshrines their right to work from home and guarantees pay rises of up to 17.5 per cent over four years for staff earning less than $100,000.

Under the new deal, which had to be renegotiated after an initial enterprise deal was rejected last year, NAB employees can ask to work remotely and can contest any rejections they think are unjustified.

The agreement needs to be approved by the Fair Work Commission.

Similarly, ANZ’s enterprise agreement, which is due to be voted on in September, gives workers the right to dispute “unreasonable” refusals to requests for working from home, and has the union’s support.

“ANZ has always embraced flexible working – whether that is where you work or when you work,” the ANZ spokeswoman said.

“We have long believed there is value in this approach and have found it to be a success with our employees.”

CBA also tabled an enterprise bargaining agreement in recent weeks, that trails NAB’s wage increases offer of up to 17 per cent over four years but is higher than the 16.5 per cent increase over the same period included in ANZ’s enterprise deal.