80% Of Employees At Bank Of Montreal May Shift To Hybrid Telecommuting Post-Pandemic

Up to 80% of employees at the Bank of Montreal, or about 36,000 of its staff, may shift to flexible arrangements once the COVID-19 pandemic subsides which would blend working from home with time in the office, according to Bloomberg.

The Toronto-based bank has conducted a broad revamp of its workplace policies in light of the outbreak, according to chief HR office Mona Malone, who says that the lender expects between 30% and 80% of employees to continue to work from home at least some of the time.

“We’ve been able to maintain continuity of banking services with far more people working outside the office than we ever thought possible,” Malone said in a Monday interview. “We thought it was critical that we were in the office to make something happen, and what we’ve proven through this is that’s actually not the case.”

According to CEO Darryl White, a “2.0 version” of the workplace may include blended home-office schedules amid a global restructuring of how offices and routines. Malone, meanwhile, says that employees at Canadian and US branches have “by and large” been going into the office during the crisis, along with a “small amount” of IT and operations employees. 95% of those in office towers have been telecommuting.

“It’s a blended approach of thinking about productivity and flexibility and for us not a return to the way it used to be,” said Malone who said the post-pandemic plan calls for more workers at home, and “a ton” of employees with hybrid schedules.

“It’s about an evolution in the way that we work,” she added.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in drastic changes at Canada’s fourth-largest bank – which shifted half of its Canadian call-center agents and 80% of US agents to home offices.

According to Malone, “That’s not a temporary thing.”

“We don’t have to think about contact centers as just these geographical hubs, and we can use this remote way of working,” she said, noting that the ‘new normal’ keeps employees safe – as opposed to crowding workers into offices after taking mass transit and elevators to get there.

“It allows us to look for new talent in locations where maybe we haven’t before, and tap into talent pools across the country,” Malone added.