London financial firms see long-term shift to working from home

While the UK government has been encouraging workers to resume working in the office, rising numbers of Covid-19 infections have put that return at risk. — Dreamstime/TNS

The heads of Man Group Plc and Schroders Plc say the shift to working from home during the pandemic will become the new normal for financial firms.

Man Group expects to have about 10% of employees back in the office next week unless the government imposes new restrictions on London, where the majority of its roughly 1,500 staff work, chief executive officer Luke Ellis said at a virtual event on Monday. The world’s biggest publicly traded hedge fund firm won’t even try to get back to having more than about 70% of staff working in the office on any given day.