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December 12th, 2021 
Awake Goy PwC, KPMG, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank are among businesses that do not intend to close their buildings down despite new Covid curbs By Simon Foy 9 December 2021 • 7:40pm
Major employers have vowed to keep their offices open to staff and continue with face to face meetings as a City backlash mounts against Boris Johnson’s work from home guidance.
PwC, KPMG, JP Morgan and Deutsche Bank are among businesses that do not intend to close their buildings down, despite the Prime Minister’s recommendation that staff should work remotely where possible to limit the spread of the omicron Covid variant.
Kevin Ellis, the chairman of PwC, said the benefits of in-person meetings cannot be replicated at home, particularly at what is a busy time for deals.
Meanwhile lawyers said they had been inundated with requests for guidance from companies seeking to work around the rules, and corporate lobby groups used a call with Kwasi Kwarteng, the Business Secretary, to demand clarity over how long restrictions are to last.
A source close to PwC, which employs about 22,000 people in the UK, said its premises will remain open for “essential purposes”. Managers are asking employees to use “personal judgment” as some work is more effective in the office. Staff will have to liaise with their team leaders to determine what activities are deemed essential, the source added.
Mr Ellis said: “As always we will follow government guidelines, but there’s no denying this will be a challenge for some sectors.
“The majority of our people had returned to the office two to three days a week. It’s the busy season for audit and there’s also lots of deal activity that benefits from some in-person meetings.
“We’ve successfully run our businesses through previous restrictions and our offices will remain open for our people who have a business or personal need to use them.”
The rhetoric is a marked contrast with how many businesses responded to restrictions a year ago. At the time, swathes of offices were shut completely or open to only the most essential staff.
The approach this time is likely to have been partly triggered by much softer language from ministers on remote working.
The Government’s guidance to “work from home, if you can” is significantly more vague than last year’s message of “everyone must work from home unless they are unable to do so”, and has left bosses unsure about whether they can keep some staff on-site.
The latest advice states that anyone who cannot work from home should continue to go in, and adds: “In-person working will be necessary in some cases to continue the effective and accessible delivery of some public services and private industries.”
It says that workers who must go to the office should “consider taking lateral flow tests regularly”, but this is not a requirement. The guidance will take effect on Monday.
Kathleen Healy, an employment partner at the magic circle law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, said: “There is quite a bit of resistance to the idea of having to go back to where we were before restrictions were previously lifted.”
She added that more than a dozen clients contacted Freshfields on Thursday enquiring about how they should interpret the new rules.
Meanwhile, JP Morgan has told UK-based employees that its buildings “will continue to be accessible to all employees who need to come in”.
In a memo to staff, the Wall Street investment bank said that while it expects a reduction in the number of people coming into its offices, some departments will continue to operate as they have been in recent months.
It said: “For those of you working any part of your week in the office, please be assured that the measures we have mandated in our buildings to protect you will remain in place, including enhanced daily cleaning.”
Deutsche Bank will also keep traders working at its London headquarters, while KPMG said staff can still speak to clients in person for “business-critical meetings”.
In a sign that bosses are growing tired of a high degree of flexible working, KPMG told its auditors recently that they will be back in the office four days a week in the future. The firm was contacted for comment on its response to the new restrictions.
EY said its UK offices will remain open “for those who need them”, adding: “We have issued guidance to advise our people to work from home where possible.”
The law firms Freshfields and Slaughter and May are advising staff to work from home from Monday, but will both keep their offices open for essential purposes.
Investment banks such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan were among the first employers in the City to tell staff to return to their desks during the summer.
David Solomon, the chief executive of Goldman, has argued that remote working is an “aberration” and not the “new normal”.
Goldman and Morgan Stanley are understood to have not yet finalised plans around how the new guidelines will change their working arrangements.
The guidance is likely to compound problems for businesses in city centres, which have struggled to recover since restrictions were lifted as many Britons continued to work from home.
On Thursday, Mr Kwarteng held an hour-long Zoom call with a raft of business groups which warned that companies facing ruined Christmas trading must prove their case for extra financial help following the move to “Plan B”.
Despite Boris Johnson saying on Wednesday that Christmas parties should go ahead, KPMG, Deloitte and Freshfields have decided to scrap them.
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