No Back to the Office at UBS

The transition to a new working culture at UBS is well underway as many employees adopt agile working methods, while others gain total freedom.

Around 10,000 – or one in ten – employees at Switzerland’s largest bank now work according to agile working methods, the bank said in its earnings release Tuesday.

Agile, which is often used in software development where product cycles are short and requirements for a solution can change quickly, has the objective of making teams more efficient and flexible. It is central to CEO Ralph Hamers’ grand plan to foster a culture of engineers at UBS.

Flexibility is also a priority when it comes to the bank’s working arrangements: In the USA, the bank is offering certain employees the possibility to work completely from their home office, while continuing to support hybrid working methods in other locations.

In Swiss banking, a 40 to 60 percent rule for remote working could become the new standard, and one adopted by Credit Suisse last month.