Citi Embraces a Hybrid Work Model as More Financial Firms Call Employees Back to the Office

• Citigroup intends to keep a hybrid work model that permits employees to work remotely two days per week.
• A Stanford University study reveals that workers following a hybrid schedule are just as productive as their in-office counterparts and are less likely to resign. 
• A flexible policy on hybrid work may enable Citigroup to attract top talent from competitors requiring employees to return to the office.

Citigroup will continue to follow a hybrid work schedule that allows employees to work from home two days per week. Citigroup (Citi) currently allows the majority of its workers to follow a hybrid schedule. 

The move, announced by Citi CEO Jane Fraser in January, is garnering attention just as many companies are calling their employees back into the office full time. Citi is the third-largest bank in the U.S., and its policy on working from home stands in stark contrast to those of the country’s other largest financial institutions.

J.P. Morgan, the largest bank in the U.S., takes a much stricter approach when it comes to flexible work schedules. Last month, the company issued a memo to employees that effectively terminated hybrid work schedules. Per reports, the memo directs all J.P. Morgan employees to return to the office full time beginning in March. 

The company’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, hasn’t been shy in his support of ending hybrid work models.

“We know that some of you prefer a hybrid work schedule and respectfully understand that not everyone will agree with this decision,” Dimon and other J.P. Morgan executives communicated in the memo to employees. “Being together greatly enhances mentoring, learning, brainstorming, and getting things done.”

But his employees don’t all share his sentiments about returning to the office. Sources say J.P. Morgan workers posted complaints on the company’s intranet about its stance on returning to the office. The page was locked in less than an hour after employees had already posted more than 300 comments in response to the memo.

Support for hybrid work models exploded in 2020 as the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated social distancing.

But the further we get from the height of the pandemic, the more that support seems to be eroding in favor of requiring employees to physically return to their respective workplaces. Goldman Sachs is another prominent name in the financial services space that doesn’t favor hybrid work schedules.

According to a recent KPMG study, 79% of CEOs in the U.S. envision corporate employees with positions traditionally held in the office to return to their physical places of work within the next three years. Only 34% of the country’s CEOs held that view in early 2024.

We spoke with Dave Cairns, Future of Work Strategist at Kadence, to get his take on Citi’s support of hybrid work. He told us that it fits in with the company’s overall workplace strategy. 

“Rather than dragging employees back with a butts–in-seats approach, Citi is investing £1 billion in a full-scale revamp of its Canary Wharf headquarters in London,” Cairns told us. “It’s all about rethinking what the office should be — a place that supports collaboration and culture, not just somewhere to clock in and out.”

Though leaders such as Dimon believe that having employees working under the same roof enhances their likelihood of “getting things done,” the data suggests otherwise. Stanford economist Nicholas Bloom is one of the most prominent researchers of company policies regarding working from home.

Bloom conducted an experiment with more than 1,600 employees of Trip.com, an online travel agency, to assess whether hybrid schedules can suit both employers and employees. Trip.com did not have a hybrid work policy prior to Bloom’s engagement with the company. For purposes of the study, Trip.com permitted approximately half of its employees to work from home two days a week while the other half remained in office full time.

Bloom’s findings concluded that employees who followed a hybrid work schedule were just as productive as their counterparts who went into the office five days a week. Moreover, resignations among employees who followed a hybrid schedule fell by 33%. Companies invest time and money into retaining employees, and Bloom’s study reveals that offering a hybrid work schedule is one way employers can keep more workers from looking for work elsewhere.

“The results are clear — hybrid work is a win-win-win for employee productivity, performance, and retention,” Bloom said. “This study offers powerful evidence for why 80% of U.S. companies now offer some sort of remote work and for why the remaining 20% of firms that don’t are likely paying a price.”

In the uber-competitive world of Wall Street’s financial firms, attracting and retaining the best employees can mean the difference between beating earnings-per-share estimates or missing them.

And offering employees the flexibility to work in a hybrid model — while other firms are taking steps to require workers to be in the office full time — may give a company the upper hand it needs to outperform expectations.

It’s an advantage that Fraser is counting on. She reportedly told executives during a recent call that the company’s embrace of hybrid work schedules could position Citi to poach talent from competitors with strict return-to-work directives.

“This isn’t just good for morale — it’s good for business,” Cairns told us. “Employees who feel valued and trusted are more engaged, more productive, and less likely to jump ship. And in a world where talent is everything, that’s a win Citi isn’t willing to sacrifice.”