One of France’s largest banks has told its London-based workers that it will start tracking their movements in and out of the office, but it says its intentions are good.
In an unsigned memo shared with workers on Sept. 25 and reported by Reuters and the Times of London, BNP Paribas bosses said they would begin tracking employees’ entry-gate swipes to ensure they were meeting attendance targets.
The bank introduced its “Smart Working” policy in 2021 as staff slowly returned to a hybrid working model following COVID-19 restrictions. The approach allowed employees to work remotely for up to half the week, combined with one day of on-site presence each week.
The memo to the London branch of the bank’s 4,500-strong U.K. workforce shows the group is now monitoring staff movements to find out whether these goals are being hit.
However, the bank told its staff the new initiative “wasn’t a matter of trust,” the outlets reported, but that it would allow it to monitor and support those employees not adhering to the Smart Working attendance minimums.
“Attending the office is not merely to demonstrate that you’re working particular hours but to facilitate better working relationships and collaboration with colleagues,” the Times reported the memo as saying.
Reuters reported that a “Data Protection Impact and Legitimate Interest Assessment” had been carried out to ensure the monitoring of staff didn’t breach their contracts.
Failing to meet the minimum
Data would be given to the senior managers of employees failing to adhere to the proposed minimum, who could decide whether or not to take action. Employees are not able to opt out of being tracked, according to the memo.
There was no indication from the memo as to whether the move would apply to its 56,000 employees in France, where BNP carries out the majority of its operations.
The initiative to track employees is the latest in a long tug-of-war between corporate bosses and their staff. Workers are generally reluctant to give up the flexibility of home working while those further from the office refuse to go back to paying steep commuting costs.
Employers on the other hand fear they are losing key cultural benefits of having staff together. While a truce of hybrid working broadly appears to have been reached, BNP’s move is the latest evidence that a compromise hasn’t yet been perfected.
A representative for BNP Paribas didn’t immediately respond to Fortune’s request for comment. However, the bank did confirm to Reuters that the memo was authentic.
“BNP Paribas U.K. has been deploying initiatives to support hybrid working and create the most agile working spaces for teams,” a spokesperson told the Times.
Pioneering moves
BNP Paribas was ahead of the curve in offering flexibility to its employees when it began trialing remote work one or two days a week for some of its staff in 2014. However, it didn’t pioneer the latest idea of tracking employees.
In July, U.S. bank Citigroup began tracking its 9,000 U.K. staff’s office movements to identify those continuing to work remotely. It followed months of growing antipathy between the company and its absent employees, during which it ordered low-performing staff to return to the office.
The group said in a statement in June it would hold workers not coming into the office three days per week accountable for their absence.
