ANZ warns of lower bonuses if staff do not come into office

One of Australia’s largest banks has warned its staff that they could be paid lower bonuses unless they spend half of their work hours in the office.

ANZ said in a note sent to more than 40,000 employees this week that in-person office attendance could be a factor in performance and pay reviews for the year ending in June 2024.

“We expect on average that our people globally spend a minimum of 50 per cent of their scheduled work time in the workplace,” said the internal email seen by the Financial Times and sent to workers in Australia, New Zealand, India and the Philippines.

The bank said office attendance would contribute to “maintaining the great culture we’re known for at ANZ”.

The bank follows other Australian companies, including Origin Energy, the country’s largest energy provider, that have in recent months linked discretionary pay to office attendance, as they work to get employees back in the workplace in the post-pandemic era.

Earlier this year, the leaders of some companies, including ANZ and rival Commonwealth Bank, requested that staff come to the office at least 50 per cent of the time.

Yet many workers have ignored the plea because the businesses have been unable to enforce it, according to John Quiggin, an economist at the University of Queensland.

The warning over performance and discretionary pay appears to be a more direct attempt to force more people back into office but still looked to be a “fairly performative measure”, he said.

Quiggin said as a result of high inflation, employees were resistant to absorbing the higher cost of commuting into the office, putting pressure on companies with attendance rules to raise wages. “How much more are employers willing to pay to get people back into the office?” he said.

NAB, another Australian bank, agreed in July to give legal protection to staff wanting to work from home as part of a broader deal that included requirements on office attendance. 

ANZ said staff could apply for an exemption to the 50 per cent attendance rule for a two-month period if they had “exceptional circumstances”. Those wanting exemptions beyond that point would require formal approval from senior leaders at the bank.

ANZ employees are not paid individual bonuses after the bank scrapped them in 2019 following a public inquiry into the links between such incentives and misconduct and customer disservice in the financial sector. The bank replaced it with “group performance dividend” model, with staff benefiting from the bank’s overall performance.

“This is a significant announcement that is going to disrupt the lives of thousands of ANZ colleagues and put future performance outcomes at risk,” said the Finance Sector Union, which represents finance employees in Australia, in a statement on Wednesday.

“ANZ colleagues have already demonstrated that they can work remotely without any impact on productivity.”