KPMG is investing in hybrid working for staff – iStock
Multinational professional services network KPMG UK has launched a ‘four-day fortnight’ as part of a package of measures designed to offer greater flexibility, choice and support to its workers.
As part of the firm’s new “hybrid way of working” employees will be able to spend up to four days in the office spread over a fortnight, with the rest spent at home or at client sites from June onwards.
This plan comes in response to feedback from staff who have said that they would feel comfortable spending most of their time at home.
Employees will go to the office to work, for meetings or training that need to be held in person, but will not have to stay for the whole day. KPMG says: “They will be empowered to manage the rest of their working week virtually from home.”
The new strategy has been designed in consultation with KPMG’s 16,000 strong workforce and aims to offer greater flexibility and choice.
In a recent staff survey undertaken in March, 87 per cent of respondents said they liked not having to commute; 76 per cent said they enjoyed the greater flexibility working from home offers and 65 per cent felt they now have a better work/life balance.
Jon Holt, chief executive at KPMG UK, said: “We trust our people. Our new way of working will empower them and enable them to design their own working week. The pandemic has proven it’s not about where you work, but how you work. We have listened to our people and designed this strategy around our staff and how they can best support our clients.”
The firm has also launched a range of measures to support the wellbeing of its staff including giving all UK staff an additional day off on 21 June; and an extra two-and-a-half hours off every week over the summer to give people time away from work to re-energise.
Staff can choose whether to take this time back in the morning or afternoon, depending on what best suits their needs.
The new package of measures forms part of KPMG’s wider investment in hybrid working. Over the course of 2021, the firm will roll out an additional £44 million programme of investment to transform its offices into collaborative spaces and invest in new homeworking technology for staff.
The firm’s planned adoption of hybrid working will see workplaces evolve into space used primarily for collaboration, teamwork and learning.
Holt said: “Our offices will become a place people go to collaborate and learn. The consequence of the pandemic means we have a whole cohort of people who have never been in the office and never been coached face-to-face – we need to get those connections back. Our new strategy for the future of work will enable our people to reconnect and test our new ways of hybrid working. This is all about flexibility – we’ll continue to listen to our people and learn as we go.”
The announcement comes over a month after PwC also announced that it will allow greater flexibility for post-pandemic working to its 22,000 employees in the UK and Nationwide, which announced plans to enable its 13,000 office-based employees to do their jobs from anywhere in the UK in a new ‘work anywhere’ scheme.
Google has also reportedly announced that it expects its US employees to live within commuting distance of their offices and work at least three days a week from them when the company's current policy of exclusively remote working ends on 1st September.