ANZ New Zealand bank cuts office space, only 70% of workers can be there at a time

Hybrid working looks set to stay. Photo / 123rf

A major bank has cut back its corporate head office space so only 70 per cent of its workforce can be there at any one time.

ANZ New Zealand, whose Auckland office is based in the ANZ Centre on Albert St has cut its floor space by 1900 sqm in the past year - roughly the equivalent of two floors in the tower.

Australian parent ANZ Group has cut its Melbourne office space by 51,000sq m and in Sydney it has cut 5600sq m, adding up to a 20 per cent reduction in its Australian footprint.

ANZ New Zealand chief executive Antonia Watson said it made the decision to cut office space as more people had been working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Like many businesses as people have been working differently we have still been reasonably conservative but we don't have the space now for all our staff to sit at their desk at one time. And we haven't done for quite some time."

She said even pre-Covid the highest rate of attendance it had in the office was 70 per cent because people were working from home or on leave or sick or travelling.

"I think that is a trend you have seen. It's more of a trend towards the office looking like shared space, collaboration space and you need less space when you don't have all your staff in every day."

ANZ NZ chief executive Antonia Watson. Photo / Supplied

She said office attendance had picked up recently but it was still only around 60 per cent on a typical Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.

Many workers prefer to work from home on a Monday or Friday.

"We have gone down to 70 per cent which is our pre-Covid worst case but we continue to review the portfolio and I think you would find most businesses saying that at the moment."

ANZ isn't alone in the move.

The Bank of New Zealand cut its corporate office space by 30 per cent in early 2021 after a permanent shift to a hybrid working model where its nearly 5000 staff work either two or three days from home.

The move also allowed it to consolidate its corporate offices from three down to two.

Earlier this year Chorus moved into its new digs in Auckland and only has 371 workstations for about 550 staff - meaning roughly 67 per cent of workers can have a desk on any given day of the working week.

Continued working from home is getting a mixed reaction. Some, like Goldman Sachs CEO David Soloman, vehemently oppose it, labelling it an "aberration" and calling for all workers to get back to the office five days a week.

Others are taking a softer approach.

National Australia Bank's Kiwi boss Ross McEwan recently told the Herald that workers needed to be back in the office.

"I am a very big advocate for people coming back."

He cited collaboration, training and promotional opportunities as reasons why but said mental health was also a factor.

That's not to say he wants people back five days a week. Instead he said two or three days a week was a good minimum.

Asked if it was hard to get workers to come back, ANZ's Watson said it depended on the person.

"Some people love being in the office and their connections - I am one of them - some people have got difficult commutes so they are in less.

"What we are encouraging people to do is work within their teams because there are some things it is great to be home for...but some stuff you really need to be working as a team and collaborating - we are just encouraging teams to work together to work out when the best time is to be in the office but very much acknowledging flexible working is here to stay.

"We always were a flexible employer but certainly a lot more of our staff recognise it is achievable and it's a really good way of running your work life."

Fewer staff

Financial accounts show ANZ NZ also has fewer staff now than it did a year ago. As at September 30, 2021 it employed 7060 FTEs but that fell to 6873 by September this year.

Watson said that was mainly down to it letting contractors go after getting through a big work programme to meet the Reserve Bank's BS11 requirements.

BS11 requires New Zealand banks to be able to operate independently of their parent company. If the servers in Melbourne went down, New Zealand ANZ customers would still be able to do their banking.

"The main thing in that is our BS11 programme is rolling off. We have had a lot of contractors - it's been a big multi-year programme and we have very much broken the back of it this year so we have had the contractors roll off."

Watson said the programme was largely complete.

“We have got one solution left to deliver and the administration with the Reserve Bank to do.”