Wells Fargo delays its return-to-office plans

Bloomberg

Wells Fargo & Co delayed its return-to-office plans by another two weeks to early November.
The firm, which has the biggest workforce of any US bank, will now begin bringing back employees who have been working remotely starting November 1, according to an internal memo from Chief Operating Officer Scott Powell. The bank had previously planned on beginning the process October 18.
President Joe Biden announced a plan last week to issue rules requiring large private employers to mandate shots or testing. Wells Fargo is evaluating how that might affect its return-to-office plans, Powell wrote in the memo.
“We are studying these proposed requirements to better understand how they apply to our RTO plans, and will share more information when it is available,” Powell said.
This is the third time Wells Fargo has pushed back its return-to-office schedule in recent weeks. The San Francisco-based lender originally laid out a plan to begin bringing workers back September 7, but that was upended as the delta variant drove Covid-19 rates up across the country.
Top executives across Wall Street and beyond long pointed to the now-passed US Labour Day holiday as a marker for corporate America’s return to normal, but many large companies have since delayed those plans. Among financial firms, which as a group have been at the forefront of the push to repopulate offices, Wells Fargo is taking a more cautious approach by repeatedly delaying its return.
By comparison, workers at rivals JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have been back in the office for months.