How Are You Going To Keep Them On The Farm…?

...when they've seen the lights of gay Paree?

Staff have resigned at Starling Bank after its new chief executive demanded thousands of workers attend its offices more frequently, despite lacking enough space to host them. In his first major policy change since taking over from the UK digital bank’s founder, Anne Boden, in March, Raman Bhatia has ordered all hybrid staff – many of whom were in the office only one or two days a week, or on an ad-hoc basis – to travel to work for a minimum of 10 days each month. But the bank, which operates online only, admitted that some of its offices would not be equipped to handle the influx.

Ha ha ha ha ha! What a clown!  

“We are aware that in some office locations we may not be able to accommodate 10 office working days per month for everyone right now. We are considering ways in which we can create more space,” an email sent by Starling’s human resources team and seen by the Guardian said.

Perhaps they can all sit on each other's laps? I'm sure that won't freak out the HR teams!  

Starling has 3,231 staff, the vast majority of whom are in the UK with some also in Dublin. However, the Guardian understands that the bank has only about 900 desks, including 260 at its Cardiff site, 320 in its London headquarters and 155 in Southampton.

Making sre people come in to the office requires that there be room in the office, doesn't it?  

The announcement led to a flurry of complaints from staff on the company’s internal Slack messaging channels, with many highlighting the lack of desk and parking spaces, as well as disruption to their work-life balance. Some staff have already resigned over the “rushed” announcement, while others have threatened to do so. One staffer, who has handed in their notice, told the Guardian: “I’ve worked for Starling for years, and have done my job effectively while working almost entirely from home.

“Being asked without warning to take on the time, expense and life disruption of returning to the office for half of the working week is not something I can personally understand or accept, so I made the decision to resign.”

Well, there's one desk free at least!  

Bhatia said “the leadership team has been thinking for some time about how to operationalise this because we share a conviction that working in the office is important for creativity, collaboration, problem solving, performance and engagement”.

It really doesn't sound like the leadership team has been thinking at all.