Thread by @bopinion

It’s taken a year of pandemic but one of the world’s biggest banks has finally acknowledged the huge toll that working remotely is taking on its staff.

Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser wants to ease Zoom fatigue and go back to regular working hours trib.al/DmWj1wd

In a long memo to Citi’s workers, Fraser laid out three measures to immediately relieve the pressure:

💻Limiting video calls on Fridays to clients only
📲Scheduling business calls at normal work hours
🌴Encouraging people to take vacations
trib.al/DmWj1wd

Citi will also create a company-wide day of rest — May 28 — the “Citi Reset Day.”

That kind of initiative can feel a little gimmicky sometimes, but if it’s tied to genuine improvements to the working week, then what’s the harm? trib.al/DmWj1wd

Citi employs over 200,000 people globally and its attempt to address the problem should persuade other big companies to rewrite their WFH manuals.

This is a long overdue attempt to tackle the common feeling of endless work days and constant surveillance trib.al/DmWj1wd

WFH has an unequal effect on different levels of the corporate hierarchy. According to a survey by Microsoft:

➡️Business leaders say they’re thriving
➡️ Employees are struggling or just surviving
➡️ 40% of workers are thinking of leaving their employer trib.al/DmWj1wd

It’s essential that companies root out quickly the WFH practices that have worsened their workers’ burden such as:

🌇Extended days
📨Sending messages or emails to employees at all hours, expecting a response trib.al/DmWj1wd

Citi’s investment bank rivals should take heed of its plan.

Just last weekend, the boss of Goldman Sachs was forced to promise that Saturday would be sacrosanct for his staff after deeply unhappy junior bankers complained about inhumane hours trib.al/DmWj1wd

While prescriptive measures might not always work, Fraser is at least putting down a marker on the need for some kind of life-work balance.

The trick now will be making sure the measures are implemented in a meaningful and lasting way trib.al/DmWj1wd