Scotiabank Calls Its Head-Office Staff Back in Four Days a Week

Article content

(Bloomberg) — Bank of Nova Scotia plans to call head-office employees back to the office four or more days per week starting in September, citing a push for more collaboration as it follows recent moves by other big lenders including Royal Bank of Canada and JPMorgan Chase & Co. 

Article content

Toronto-based Scotiabank said it will require teams with “real estate capacity” to increase their days spent working in the office to “4+ days per week,” according to an internal memo sent to Canadian banking employees in the Greater Toronto Area last week. The memo, reviewed by Bloomberg News, wasn’t sent to branch workers, who are already working onsite full time.

Article content

Article content

Article content

“We have decided to increase the number of days that our teams work onsite, beginning in September 2025,” according to the memo. “Spending more time together in the office enables more effective collaboration and problem-solving and ultimately provides more opportunities to develop one’s career.”

Article content

Article content

Office space will be a limiting factor for some teams, according to the memo, which said that groups “constrained by real estate availability” will be expected to be in three or more days per week with the goal of eventually having all employees based at the head office in four days or more each week. 

Article content

“We know having our teams working together in-person has many benefits — greater collaboration, higher engagement, more career-development opportunities and a stronger culture and sense of belonging — and we are already seeing the positive impact this is having across the bank as we focus on executing on our strategy,” Scotiabank spokesperson Katie Raskina said in an email Monday. “We will continue to build on this impact as we bring our teams onsite more often, with the goal of reaching four days onsite across the bank over time.”

Article content

Article content

Royal Bank is also planning to call employees back to the office four days per week starting in the fall, according to a Globe and Mail report last month, and JPMorgan, the largest US bank, mandated five days a week in office earlier this year.

Article content

JPMorgan Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon got attention for heated remarks made during an internal town-hall meeting about the perils of working from home. He defended those comments in an interview with Bloomberg last month, saying working from doesn’t work for young people, management or innovation.   

Article content

Scotiabank had about 22,000 employees in its Canadian banking business as of the end of April, according to its most recent financial report, but that includes branch employees and other office workers across the country. The division, which accounts for more than 40% of its earnings, includes retail, small-business and commercial-banking services.

Article content

Some employees won’t be affected by the changes, according to the memo, due to the nature of their work, with those on the global client-experience center and Canadian banking collections teams seeing no change in their work-from-home arrangements.

Article content

Client-facing employees in Scotiabank’s capital-markets business have already been back in office for at least four per week for some time, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified discussing internal policies.

Article content