Citi is bucking the RTO trend and sticking to 3 days a week in the office, even as it spends $1.2 billion on a new London office

• Citigroup’s CEO, Jane Fraser, has emphasized hybrid work, saying she views it as a recruitment tool.
• Employees can keep working two days a week remotely, she told executives.
• Other Wall Street titans, like JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs, have enforced strict RTO mandates.

Since pandemic restrictions lifted, Wall Street’s biggest names have been leading the charge to get employees back to their desks. But Citigroup is standing firm behind its hybrid work policy.

The bank will continue to allow most employees to work from home two days a week, the US bank’s chief executive Jane Fraser told executives during a quarterly call in mid-January, the Financial Times reported.

The majority of Citi employees are required to be in the office three days a week and can work remotely for two days. Bank branch employees and most traders are required to be in the office five days a week.

On the call, Fraser reportedly said that offering hybrid work gives Citi an advantage over its competitors and could be a recruitment tool to draw in employees, the FT first reported and Business Insider has confirmed.

Fraser has previously characterized working from home as a privilege, not a right. At the 2023 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, she said the bank was calling workers with productivity issues back to their desks.

Even as Fraser doubles down on hybrid work at Citi, the bank is spending big on new office space.

Citi is spending £1 billion ($1.2 billion) to renovate its London office into a “workplace for the future.” The Citi Tower in Canary Wharf is due to open in 2026.

Citi’s approach is less strict than most of its Wall Street competitors.

Goldman Sachs was one of the first banks to re-introduce five days a week in the office. CEO David Solomon called remote work an “aberration” in 2021.

By 2022, JPMorgan had roughly 50% of employees back in the office five days a week. This January, it announced that it was ending hybrid work and bringing all workers back to the office starting in March.

“We know that some of you prefer a hybrid schedule and respectfully understand that not everyone will agree with this decision,” the bank said in a memo, adding, “We think it is the best way to run the company.”

A company spokesman said that roughly 70% of the bank’s employees were already back in the office five days a week.

The bank’s RTO push comes as JPMorgan prepares to open a newly refurbished global headquarters at 270 Park Avenue by the end of 2025. With space to house up to 14,000 employees, the building will set “new standards for employee wellness and hospitality,” according to a press release.