Banque Nationale boss wants everyone back to the office
The boss of the Banque Nationale wants everyone back to the downtown office five days a week – and the fact that his bank just built a gigantic new office tower might have something to do with it.
I’ve said before and will say again: downtown came into existence to serve people, people don’t exist to service downtown. Downtown Montreal grew up over more than a century because people were doing certain kinds of business there. But retail was already changing, jobs were already becoming more decentralized, before the pandemic accelerated those trends. We don’t need to go back to 1940, we need to find ways of working productively as we do now.
David S 20:35 on 2023-04-21 Permalink
Last year, I was at a fairly crowded coffee shop in Saint-Henri and, at the next table, a woman was working “from home” on her laptop. She was a bank worker and I had a clear view of very confidential client information on her laptop screen. I am all for working from home, but not when it poses serious risk to personal information. And even from home, family members or roommates can potentially see that personal information.
Kevin 22:08 on 2023-04-21 Permalink
The head of another bank, RBC, has been very clear that the reason he wants employees back in the office is that it is affecting the value of commercial real estate assets, i.e. the bank is experiencing a drop in “productivity.”
Meanwhile the city of Calgary is busy funding the conversion of unused office space to residential towers.
DeWolf 23:10 on 2023-04-21 Permalink
Bloviating from corporate bosses means absolutely nothing. Companies can force their employees back to the office five days a week, but they’ll need to deal with a lot of turnover if they do so. Maybe they’re banking on an upcoming recession to force people’s hands. (The recession that has been promised for what, seven or eight months now? And still hasn’t arrived…)
But downtown will be fine. It has never been an office district and nothing else. 100,000 residents, four universities, two big cégeps, several major museums, countless cultural events every year… This isn’t Calgary.