HSBC’s top brass to use hot desk at London headquarters as bank scraps executive floor

Senior managers at HSBC, Europe’s largest bank, will work at hot desks after chief executive Noel Quinn scrapped the entire executive floor at the lender’s Canary Wharf headquarters in London.

The 42nd floor of the bank’s office building will now host client meeting rooms and collaborative space.

Senior staff will have to work from an open-plan space two floors below, Mr Quinn told the Financial Times.

“We don’t have a designated desk. You turn up and grab one in the morning,” he said.

The offices of the bank’s top executives were empty half of the time as they travelled around the world and keeping that space engaged was “a waste of real estate”, he said.

“If I am asking our colleagues to change the way that they are working, then it is only right that we change the way we are working,” said Mr Quinn.

“I will not be in the office five days a week. I think it is unnecessary ... it is the new reality of life.”

More changes are coming and it will be a “very different” working style going forward as the bank leans more towards a hybrid work model, said Mr Quinn, who has been in charge of HSBC for more than a year and a half.

HSBC is in the middle of restructuring its operations and has shed 35,000 jobs to reduce its headcount to about 200,000.

It plans to reduce its cost base by $5.5 billion, which will help it offset pressure on earnings amid a low interest rate environment.

As part of its cost-cutting drive, the lender does not plan to renew many of its city-centre leases that are due in the next three to five years.

It is also shifting to a policy of about two employees for every desk, excluding branches.

The Covid-19 pandemic has forced global lenders and major corporations to rethink how they operate, with many adopting hybrid models.

Standard Chartered formalised hybrid working arrangements this month for its 95,000 employees while Britain’s biggest mortgage lender Nationwide will allow its 13,000 office-based staff to work from home full-time if they so wish.

Lloyds is carrying out a trial of the hybrid work model this spring after 77 per cent of employees “expressed a desire” to continue working remotely after Covid-19.

HSBC’s chief executive said senior managers’ offices were empty half of the time as they travelled around the world