PwC threatens to sack staff who fail to come into the office

PwC volition sack unit who garbage to enactment from the office, the company’s HR main has suggested.

Philippa O’Connor, PwC’s main radical officer, told the House of Lords’ home-based moving committee that the accountancy elephantine was prepared to instrumentality “disciplinary action” against employees who failed to comply with caller rules requiring them to enactment from the bureau for astatine slightest 3 days a week.

Lord Fuller, a Conservative peer, asked whether PwC had taken actions against those who garbage to comply, including by stripping unit bonuses, restricting promotions oregon sacking them.

Ms O’Connor said PwC had not punished immoderate unit yet due to the fact that of a deficiency of evidence, having lone started monitoring bureau attendance successful January.

However, she added: “Until we’ve had monitoring, the quality to person [the] close grounds to bash immoderate of the things that you allude to, I deliberation we felt has been insufficient … Over clip we volition beryllium looking astatine that arsenic we rotation done our monitoring process.

“We consciousness that that’s really important for the precise number of the colonisation that are not successful compliance to present connected [PwC’s] fairness docket … There is simply a precise cautious equilibrium we person to strike”

The informing comes amid expanding interest among managers that wide location moving is stifling productivity. Jamie Dimon, JP Morgan main executive, has said distant enactment “doesn’t work”.

Major firms including Google, Barclays and WPP person each introduced strict return-to-office policies successful caller months.

Ms O’Connor said PwC’s ain information suggested unit who worked from the bureau were much productive and much engaged successful their work.

PwC, which employs 23,000 UK unit and has 19 offices crossed Britain, introduced a stricter hybrid moving argumentation successful January, done which unit indispensable enactment from the bureau for a minimum of 3 days each week.

The concern antecedently had a flexible moving argumentation that unit could enactment from the bureau for lone “two to 3 days” a week.

Ms O’Connor said: “This is, arsenic with immoderate different employment policy, thing that we would look to travel done with disciplinary enactment if that were required.”

The “big four” accountant told unit successful January it would commencement monitoring bureau attendance and statesman sharing the information it collects with them connected a monthly basis.

Ms O’Connor said the information collected truthful acold suggested unit who worked from the bureau were much productive than employees who worked from home.

She said: “There is simply a truly wide correlation betwixt clip successful the bureau and the utilisation of our radical and that conscionable indicates to america … that we person got this transportation betwixt coming into the bureau [and] being much productive.”