[Northern Light]

One of the ways of smoothing work from home could be suburban campuses, so people don't have to commute as far.

RBC has those towers in Meadowvale, and I've heard they already have people doing RTO but to work there instead of downtown, which works well for enough where it's a 20 minute drive to the office instead of a 20 minute drive to the GO Train to make a 30 minute trip downtown with a ten minute walk added on to that. That's managed things so far, but I don't know what Scotia can do, I'm not as familiar with their alternate suburban space, but I bet they will try to get people out from the core.for now.

To your point, CIBC has been aggressively consolidating into downtown for years.

Scotia intends to maintain 2 large suburban sites with the rest being folded into either the remaining ones or downtown.

Can't speak to RBC's plans in this regard..

But in general, I don't see the banks adding any suburban office space for the reasons outlined by @evandyk above. While existing suburban spaces might see more use, the general desire it to keep 'teams' physically together, if not co-mingling with other teams. Fragmenting teams across multiple campuses would seem to be at cross-purposes with much of the RTO ethos.

Beyond cooperating/learning/networking..........there is a senior management desire for direct oversight ie. your team leader/manager can see what you're up to (or not). Which is much more challenging when staff are working from home.

 

[rdaner]

Interesting point. I worked at Meadowvale for 2 years and can add some observations. The average commute for many was well over 20 mins as workers come from across the GTHA and 99% used the 401 which makes a GO train ride pleasurable by comparison. Also only the lowest level activities are housed there as higher-level departments start drawing on workers who live in the City of Toronto. Finally it was unpleasant as the only food options were inside the building as there was nothing else in the area.

Having said that an outpost at MCC would work better than Meadowvale as many employees lived there and there are other services nearby.

 

[evandyk]

Interesting point. I worked at Meadowvale for 2 years and can add some observations. The average commute for many was well over 20 mins as workers come from across the GTHA and 99% used the 401 which makes a GO train ride pleasurable by comparison. Also only the lowest level activities are housed there as higher-level departments start drawing on workers who live in the City of Toronto. Finally it was unpleasant as the only food options were inside the building as there was nothing else in the area.

I worked in a suburban campus in Mississauga for about five years, and the food was the best thing about it. As long as you had enough time to drive somewhere else. But that was Dixie and Eglinton, which has a little more to offer than Meadowvale (though things are changing fast up there).

 

[afransen]

Interesting point. I worked at Meadowvale for 2 years and can add some observations. The average commute for many was well over 20 mins as workers come from across the GTHA and 99% used the 401 which makes a GO train ride pleasurable by comparison. Also only the lowest level activities are housed there as higher-level departments start drawing on workers who live in the City of Toronto. Finally it was unpleasant as the only food options were inside the building as there was nothing else in the area.

Having said that an outpost at MCC would work better than Meadowvale as many employees lived there and there are other services nearby.

For MCC to be a reasonable location for office development, it needs far better transit than it will get for decades. Why not NYCC instead? On the 401 and the subway...

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

For MCC to be a reasonable location for office development, it needs far better transit than it will get for decades. Why not NYCC instead? On the 401 and the subway...

The fact that none of the designated office subcentres in either the 416 nor the 905 had seen much new development after the initial surge is plenty telling - there is no critical mass of anything around these sites that offers any benefit (even when mass transit is available); and what space there is isn't flexible enough for the typical suburban typology (stand alone office with mass parking lots).

AoD

 

[Towered]

The fact that none of the designated office subcentres in either the 416 nor the 905 had seen much new development after the initial surge is plenty telling - there is no critical mass of anything around these sites that offers any benefit (even when mass transit is available); and what space there is isn't flexible enough for the typical suburban typology (stand alone office with mass parking lots).

AoD

Exactly. Walk literally 1 minute south of Bloor and Islington (the heart of "downtown" Etobicoke! ) and you're faced with swathes of 50's bungalows. It's a joke.

 

[Dan416]

At my company, we moved from 2x to 3x a week in the office last year, which was not well-received. However, they laid off 75-80% of our Toronto office and moved most functions to New York (we no longer have Canadian marketing or HR, for example). So our office is in an amazing location, but we have so few people left. On a normal day, there's maybe a total of 6 of us there, in an office designed for like 80 people. So it really feels like a ghost town. Everyone is kinda expecting that we'll go up to 4 days a week, but hoping it doesn't happen. I think the main issue is that the New York office is so full, there isn't enough space there. Even though Toronto has space, we're an afterthought to the Americans. We're not even an American company, so quite disappointing that we're run out of NYC now.

 

[Jonny5]

Interesting development at the bank I work for here in Toronto, which is a small outpost of a foreign bank. The Canada CEO has said he will begin enforcing the three days per week policy, and was clear that it's only three, but it was because so many employees simply weren't following it and coming in only once per week.

More interesting to me was another line in the email, which added employees will also have to wear "proper business attire" at the office. I do agree standards had fallen beneath even "business casual" around the office, even by those who do come in every day, but on some days, especially Friday, it's like people dressed as they were going to the beach, or going to a night club.

 

[evandyk]

We currently have a two day a week policy, but a lot of people don't bother. I come in 5 days a week because I prefer doing my work in the office, and I know that there are people who almost never show up. We're going to 4 in the near future, and it's been threatened that it will be rigorously enforced. We'll see.

I do think some increase in dress standards would be nice. People have become slobs since the pandemic, even when going to the office! That said, we have one guy who often wears a very formal double-breasted suit when he comes to the office, and that isn't the answer either...

 

[afransen]

Interesting development at the bank I work for here in Toronto, which is a small outpost of a foreign bank. The Canada CEO has said he will begin enforcing the three days per week policy, and was clear that it's only three, but it was because so many employees simply weren't following it and coming in only once per week.

More interesting to me was another line in the email, which added employees will also have to wear "proper business attire" at the office. I do agree standards had fallen beneath even "business casual" around the office, even by those who do come in every day, but on some days, especially Friday, it's like people dressed as they were going to the beach, or going to a night club.

My workplace/function, we went to casual before COVID. Jeans, collared shirt or sweater. We're not customer facing, so I think it's fine. I do business casual when meeting external parties, but most of the time it is a Teams call.

 

[afransen]

We currently have a two day a week policy, but a lot of people don't bother. I come in 5 days a week because I prefer doing my work in the office, and I know that there are people who almost never show up. We're going to 4 in the near future, and it's been threatened that it will be rigorously enforced. We'll see.

I do think some increase in dress standards would be nice. People have become slobs since the pandemic, even when going to the office! That said, we have one guy who often wears a very formal double-breasted suit when he comes to the office, and that isn't the answer either...

Not gonna lie, if we were asked to start wearing business formal, I would demand a 10% raise on the spot. Not dealing with dry cleaning and pressing shirts (pointless nonsense) is worth a lot.

 

[Towered]

To hell with business formal. It's in the past.

 

[lenaitch]

Within the bounds of labour law and/or a collective aggreement, workplace attire is the purview of the employer. I doubt many 'Bay St. law firms' have made much of a shift.

 

[evandyk]

The dress standards even for the Bay St law firms are lower today than they were 15 years ago, though they are probably still the most formal of any workplace. But 15 years ago, a tie was generally expected pretty much every day, and that certainly isn't the case now.

 

[fiendishlibrarian]

The dress standards even for the Bay St law firms are lower today than they were 15 years ago, though they are probably still the most formal of any workplace. But 15 years ago, a tie was generally expected pretty much every day, and that certainly isn't the case now.

That's a kind of "it depends" scenario: firm, role, client-facing or not, internal firm culture, etc. I've worked for several of the largest firms, and at some I wore a tie every day - especially when I was a manager - others, not so much. My current firm is a mix: most partners and senior associates wear ties to practice group, management and client meetings, as do associates and students at least half the time I see them, but overall it leans more "formal" than others. I usually wear a tie during training and presentations when the weather gets cold enough to wear those clothes on a regular basis (probably starting next month). Just for my own preference I'll probably wear a tie a couple of days a week now that I'm in four days. I've worn ties since high school, not a big deal for me and I lean old-school that way.