Deutsche Bank is reportedly considering a permanent 2-day work-from-home policy, weeks after its research arm said people choosing to work remotely should be taxed 5%
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- Deutsche Bank is considering letting staff permanently work two days a week from home, people familiar with the matter told Bloomberg.
- The policy won't apply to all employees at Deutsche Bank, which has offices all around the world, and regulatory concerns still need to be addressed, they said.
- A Deutsche Bank spokesperson told Business Insider: "We are working on a hybrid model that will combine working from home as well as in the office. No decision has been made yet."
- Earlier in November, Deutsche Bank researchers called for a 5% tax on people choosing to work from home, arguing that remote work saved employees money.
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Deutsche Bank could soon allow most employees to permanently work from home two days a week, according to a Bloomberg report.
The two-day rule has emerged as the preferred plan for Germany's biggest bank during discussions about remote working over the past few months, according to people familiar with the matter who requested to remain anonymous, per Bloomberg.
Deutsche told Business Insider it was looking at a "hybrid model that will combine working from home as well as in the office," but that no decisions had been made.
Before the pandemic, the 90,000-person German bank, which has offices all over the world, only had a few thousand employees working from home. Since then, its systems and procedures have had to support up to 70,000 people across the world working remotely at the same time.
The people told Bloomberg that the policy won't apply to all staff in the company, and regulatory questions still need to be addressed.
Lawmakers in several countries still need to finalize Deutsche Bank's new plan, one person said.
The people said that it isn't yet clear how the bank will handle confidentiality issues when people are working remotely. This will probably lead to offices in different countries having separate policies, they added.
A Deutsche Bank spokesperson told Business Insider: "We are exploring what positive lessons Deutsche Bank can learn from the COVID-19 crisis about how we work as a bank in the future.
"We are working on a hybrid model that will combine working from home as well as in the office," they said. "No decision has been made yet."
Deutsche Bank's potential policy shift comes after the company's research arm, Deutsche Bank Research, called for a 5% tax on people choosing to work from home.
The researchers argued that working from home saves people money on transport and clothes. Money raised from the tax could support people on low incomes who cannot do their jobs remotely, they said in a report.
In May, Tiina Lee, chief executive of Deutsche Bank in the UK and Ireland, said the company faced "some challenges because so many started to work from home in a short period."
Sales and trading operations were the main hurdles because they require more technology and equipment, Lee said.
Many major companies are continuing to work remotely amid the uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic.
American Express, Airbnb, and Uber have extended their work-from-home policies, whilst staff at Twitter have been told they can work from home forever.
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