[fiendishlibrarian]

As of September most if not all of the major Bay Street law firms will be four days per week in the office, partners all the way down to paralegals as well as support staff (business development, marketing, etc.). This is from sources from five different firms not including my own (which is also going to four days in).

 

[Jonny5]

RBC is set to force nearly all employees to return to 4 days per week in office this September:

RBC to require employees to work in the office four days a week

Bank’s move is a milestone for companies looking to bring staff back to the office on a closer to full-time basis

www.theglobeandmail.com

Note that most U.S. banks are already back to 5 days. I expect RBC may well move to that in early 2026.

They could go back to five, though I've heard they (and other banks) have consolidated office space to a point many locations can't go beyond four as they only have space for 80% of the staff on any given day.

Also of note is the question of will they be enforcing a full eight hour work day or not. There's a lot of people who come in to the office for the morning, but leave at around 2:00 p.m. to beat rush hour, and they may make an allowance for that in some locations.

 

[christiesplits]

RBC is set to force nearly all employees to return to 4 days per week in office this September:

RBC to require employees to work in the office four days a week

Bank’s move is a milestone for companies looking to bring staff back to the office on a closer to full-time basis

www.theglobeandmail.com

Note that most U.S. banks are already back to 5 days. I expect RBC may well move to that in early 2026.

I wonder if we'll start seeing WFH as the new salary increase for performance reviews. "Hey boss, I hit above our targets. Can I go down to two days a week?"

 

[Northern Light]

They could go back to five, though I've heard they (and other banks) have consolidated office space to a point many locations can't go beyond four as they only have space for 80% of the staff on any given day.

Class A space in downtown is running at around 8% vacant. There is some spare capacity. But as that runs out.............there is an obvious solution and a pipeline of projects awaiting anchor tenants.

Also of note is the question of will they be enforcing a full eight hour work day or not. There's a lot of people who come in to the office for the morning, but leave at around 2:00 p.m. to beat rush hour, and they may make an allowance for that in some locations.

I can't speak to each bank's policies now and in the future.......even where I have some idea, the players in decisions making roles may/will change.

But I will say, David over at RBC certainly gives the impression he wants 5-day back and sees September as a stepping stone move.

 

[Jonny5]

I wonder if we'll start seeing WFH as the new salary increase for performance reviews. "Hey boss, I hit above our targets. Can I go down to two days a week?"

Another possibility I've heard floated is to have WFH days booked as you do vacation days, where you get a certain amount each calendar year, say 52, and you decide when to use them and then book them in advance with manager approval, so perhaps you can book a whole week of WFH, or take them once each week, or whatever the policy allows, but it will roll into the HR system that way.

 

[Northern Light]

The parade gets longer............Scotia Bank announcing today that they will move to 4 mandatory days in office beginning in September wherever feasible.

Where they lack sufficient office space, they will add space to make that possible and the policy will become mandatory as soon as the space is available.

Bank of Nova Scotia to require some employees to work in the office four days a week

Large employers across Canada and other major financial markets are ramping up office-work mandates

www.theglobeandmail.com

Watch for this to become near universal over the next few months, and the office vacancy rate will trend downwards, particularly in Class A space in the core.

5 day mandates are coming in 2026.

 

[Towered]

I'm surprised these mandates have taken 3.5 years after the pandemic ended to be implemented.

 

[Northern Light]

I'm surprised these mandates have taken 3.5 years after the pandemic ended to be implemented.

We're about a year behind the U.S. in this...........

I think a combination of things are at play...........we went further than they did, with longer lockdowns and more remote work.

Banks and others shed some office space as they kept work forces hybrid and that meant that many firms lacked the space to absorb 100% return to office.......

Finally, I think there's been greater resistance/pushback here to return-to-office with employers a bit nervous that if they were outiers in forcing the issue that valuable staff might decamp to a competitor.

I think, however, we've crossed a key pivot point in terms of CEOs and government leaders reaching a consensus that the status quo isn't working for them, for one reason or another.

Hybrid/remote will never be completely un-done...........but the big walk-back is now fully underway.

 

[afransen]

Class A space in downtown is running at around 8% vacant. There is some spare capacity. But as that runs out.............there is an obvious solution and a pipeline of projects awaiting anchor tenants.



I can't speak to each bank's policies now and in the future.......even where I have some idea, the players in decisions making roles may/will change.

But I will say, David over at RBC certainly gives the impression he wants 5-day back and sees September as a stepping stone move.

Many workplaces used hybrid work as an excuse to go to a much degraded open plan office with banks of desks and unassigned seating. When employers go back to 5 days per week, I think staff will complain loudly about conditions in those offices. I'm already hearing it with 4 days a week and not having assigned desks.

 

[Admiral Beez]

Hybrid/remote will never be completely un-done...........but the big walk-back is now fully underway.

I’m never going back to RTO. During and since Covid my workspace was/is taken over by operations/production. My boss lives nearby and is mostly WFH, so I will often cycle over to his place and we'll hold meetings in the backyard over coffees. The rest of the time I am (with the dog) on the road visiting customers (just got back from Sarnia) or working the inside sales calls from home (with cats on keyboard). I can never go back to big corporate again. I'm 54 now and if I can keep this gig until I'm 58 or so I'll retire. Much of Gen-X is checked out and does not GAF anymore about face time or pleasing HR and middle mgmt at the office.

 

[Towered]

I’m never going back to RTO. During and since Covid my workspace was/is taken over by operations/production. My boss lives nearby and is mostly WFH, so I will often cycle over to his place and we'll hold meetings in the backyard over coffees. The rest of the time I am (with the dog) on the road visiting customers (just got back from Sarnia) or working the inside sales calls from home (with cats on keyboard). I can never go back to big corporate again. I'm 54 now and if I can keep this gig until I'm 58 or so I'll retire. Much of Gen-X is checked out and does not GAF anymore about face time or pleasing HR and middle mgmt at the office.

I'm right in the middle of the Gen X cohort, and I'm definitely mentally checked out of my corporate job. I phone it in every day. I literally do just barely enough to get the minimum work done with the sole motivation of covering my ass and staying under management radar. I avoid meetings like the plague. I've become an absolute master at it. I'm just waiting for a severance. Those crazy tights I show in the cafe thread? I wear that shit to work. The other day I wore a t-shirt of a cartoon anime girl in a bikini about to pour milk over her exaggerated knockers. Why? Because as you said, I don't GAF and haven't for many years, and nobody else at the company GAF either

 

[Northern Light]

I'm right in the middle of the Gen X cohort, and I'm definitely mentally checked out of my corporate job. I phone it in every day. I literally do just barely enough to get the minimum work done with the sole motivation of covering my ass and staying under management radar. I avoid meetings like the plague. I've become an absolute master at it. I'm just waiting for a severance. Those crazy tights I show in the cafe thread? I wear that shit to work. The other day I wore a t-shirt of a cartoon anime girl in a bikini about to pour milk over her exaggerated knockers. Why? Because as you said, I don't GAF and haven't for many years, and nobody else at the company GAF either

Now now.........the others at your workplace do have a reason to show up.............to see what you're wearing and what outlandish thing you'll say or do today!

This is why management thinks you're indispensable, you're an indispensable low-cost office perk.

It was you or invest in a VR Lounge ......

 

[Admiral Beez]

I'm right in the middle of the Gen X cohort, and I'm definitely mentally checked out of my corporate job. I phone it in every day. I literally do just barely enough to get the minimum work done with the sole motivation of covering my ass and staying under management radar.

The movie Office Space was a documentary for Gen-X. And Millennials and Gen-Zs think they invented “quiet quitting”.

I've also been doing the maths. With the house paid off, structural renovations recently completed and the kids uni paid off and about to launch, I think I could reduce my expenses to little more than property taxes, utilities, food, home/auto insurance and home/auto maintenance. Everything else is fun money. If Gen-X can eliminate its debts, pay off its housing and stay healthy and married (or don't get married), we can live on pennies.

 

[gabe]

I'm right in the middle of the Gen X cohort, and I'm definitely mentally checked out of my corporate job. I phone it in every day. I literally do just barely enough to get the minimum work done with the sole motivation of covering my ass and staying under management radar. I avoid meetings like the plague. I've become an absolute master at it. I'm just waiting for a severance. Those crazy tights I show in the cafe thread? I wear that shit to work. The other day I wore a t-shirt of a cartoon anime girl in a bikini about to pour milk over her exaggerated knockers. Why? Because as you said, I don't GAF and haven't for many years, and nobody else at the company GAF either

My partner is Gen X, he's given up on dressing up like a million dollars for work. They forced him back to the office two days a week to the new office building way the hell out in a industrial wasteland by the airport. He's grumpy on office work days. He gets so stressed out driving. He used to just take the TTC/Go Bus into the downtown. Now he has no choice, he has to drive.

 

[Towered]

My partner is Gen X, he's given up on dressing up like a million dollars for work. They forced him back to the office two days a week to the new office building way the hell out in a industrial wasteland by the airport. He's grumpy on office work days. He gets so stressed out driving. He used to just take the TTC/Go Bus into the downtown. Now he has no choice, he has to drive.

That's my worst nightmare, having to work in a suburban wasteland.