Staff at a British bank are quitting their ‘grey corporate hellscape’ after CEO demands they come to the office—even without space to seat them
Starling Bank touts itself as Britain’s first-ever online-only bank. But the company’s U-turn on its hybrid work policy, ordering staffers back to offices, and without having enough space to accommodate them, has prompted a wave of resignations.
The London-based bank is ordering its hybrid workers, who spend only a handful of days in the office each month at best, to come in at least 10 working days each month.
The only problem? Starling Bank’s offices in London, Cardiff, and Southampton don’t have enough space for the mandate to work. With over 3,000 workers, Starling has just about 900 desks in all its locations, The Guardian reported.
The Goldman Sachs-backed neobank acknowledged the limitation in an email sent to staffers, cited by the news outlet.
“We are considering ways in which we can create more space,” the email said.
The mandate, which seemed to aim to force people out of work-from-home setups, received instant backlash. A few staff members have reportedly already resigned, while others are griping about CEO Raman Bhatia’s move on work Slack channels.
One staff member said that by ordering people to come into offices more, Starling was creating a “bland grey corporate hellscape filled with dead-eyed zombies who care about nothing more than doing the bare minimum, clocking off and collecting a paycheque,” The Guardian reported.
Another person said that “being asked without warning to take on the time, expense and life disruption of returning to the office” prompted them to leave the company.
100% online bank @StarlingBank whose entire business premise is about doing things online now trusts tech so little they want staff back in the office. If an online company doesn’t trust their staff & tech doing everything online, why should it’s customers trust it’s products? 🤔 https://t.co/Df8eH5mO4e
— Tagg (@TeemuTagg) November 19, 2024
But Starling Bank’s Bhatia argues the mandate had been in the works for months, and was “surprised” at staffers’ reactions.
“Starling recently formalised a long-standing practice in which colleagues were encouraged to work in their local office for two to three days a week,” a spokesperson for the bank told Fortune.
“People managers are able to provide additional support to colleagues with wellbeing and other personal needs. Those with fully remote or flexible arrangements in place already remain on those terms.”
The move comes just weeks after Starling Bank was fined £29 million by the U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority for “shockingly lax” screening processes that left the entire system vulnerable to criminals.
Will the WFH war ever end?
Return-to-work mandates have become a tug-of-war between employees resisting the shift and bosses insisting it’s the cure-all for collaboration, productivity, and office culture. For instance, when Amazon’s Andy Jassy demanded staff come back to the office every day or leave the company, it made employees “rage apply” for new jobs.
Bolt, the Uber competitor, is calling its staff back to the office as they’re growing “disconnected” from the office setting by working from abroad. Spanish bank Santander also recently ramped up its RTO mandate, similar to what Starling has mandated.
Employees aren’t entirely on board—this has resulted in court cases and new legislation to support flexible work, but employees still have few options for legal recourse when they’re ordered back to work.
The demand for office spaces themselves is changing, too. About half of all clients in markets, including the U.K., Germany, and France, are trying to downsize their office space as fewer people come into the office, commercial real estate firm JLL found.
Still, Europe is better off in terms of office attendance than the U.S., thanks to better public transport and urban layout.
“Offices are returning to vibrancy and, while many see the current levels of utilization as stable, 30% of companies expect further increases,” Richard Holberton, CBRE’s head of European office research, told Bloomberg in July.
“The general acceptance of hybrid working is widespread, but the challenge remains of matching employers’ expectations with that of their employees over the long term.”
