ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott rules out shifting HQ from Melbourne to Sydney

Setting his own status to WFH for the first time, ANZ CEO Shayne Elliott says things must change. But there’s no way the bank is moving to Sydney.

ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott working from his Melbourne home. Picture: Supplied.

ANZ chief executive Shayne Elliott has quashed suggestions to move the bank’s head office from coronavirus-riddled Melbourne to Sydney. But he says with working from home becoming more normal, the concept of corporate office space will change.

For the first time during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mr Elliott began working from home this week after Melbourne entered stage four restrictions on Sunday night. He said such working arrangements will become permanent, even when the pandemic subsides.

But when asked by 3AW’s Neil Mitchell if the hard lockdown in Melbourne would prompt ANZ and other Melbourne-headquartered companies to move their head offices to Sydney, Mr Elliott ruled out such a move.

“No. We have been here for almost 200 years. It’s our home,” Mr Elliott said.

“Head offices are an interesting place. I think the concept of a head office is going to change directly as a result of this.

“It will become more of a touchdown point for people. We had already moved to flexible working prior to COVID-19: more and more people work from home, part time, job sharing, all of that stuff.”

Mr Elliott has been a big advocate of agile methodology, or “new ways of working”, as he prefers to call it. The bank began its agile transformation in 2017 across its Australian division and has since introduced it to other areas of the business.

ANZ had also closed about 100 branches during the pandemic and reduced operating hours at others, with Mr Elliott saying digital transactions now accounted for more than 91 per cent of customer interactions.

But he said while remote working has become more normalised as a result of the pandemic, it won’t make corporate offices redundant.

“We still think there is value in getting people together. One of things people quite rightly point out, the problem with all these Zoom calls and all the stuff we do online, is you don’t have the informal running into people. You don’t have the creativity that comes from that, the conversations that happen in the hallway that leads to a really good idea.

“We still believe that’s important. So we want a place to get people together from time to time. It doesn’t mean it has to be five days a week.”

Changes for the good

The stage four restrictions in Melbourne have isolated Australia’s second most populous state from the rest of the country, increasing the risk it will lag economically compared to the other states for several years. But Mr Elliott was upbeat about the opportunities the pandemic could present.

He stressed that his comments shouldn’t be construed as not taking the coronavirus outbreak seriously, but said life changing innovation had emerged during economic downturns, highlighting Amazon and Uber as examples.

“(There has been) more use of credit cards or plastic rather than cash, more working from home, more flexibility - all of those things were trends that were in place - but they have just accelerated like crazy in a period of a few months.

“There is obviously going to be a severe impact and some casualties and that’s dreadful. What we have got to do is figure out how we protect those people from harm.

“But most of those changes are probably good things for the long-term and will make Australia and Victoria more contemporary in terms of the skills that we need to make a better future for our children. But we need to make sure that we look after those who are really struggling through this period.”

Mr Elliott hinted that Melbourne’s harsh lockdown could extend the bank’s home loan deferral program beyond March, which is the date set out from the Australian Prudential Regulatory Authority.

“It’ll be a watch and see. The good news is both the banks and the regulator, everybody has shown a willingness to flex with the reality. If (extending loan deferrals) is what is needed to do then we will do it, I guess, with or without government support.

“Let’s not forget that there is a big formal deferral program, which thousands of people have taken the benefit of and good on them. If people haven’t, you should if that’s what you want to do. But then the banks have always had bespoke arrangements with customers who are in trouble through no fault of their own and need a bit of a helping hand.

“We will just need to be flexible on that front.”