Citigroup is making day of the week off-limits for Zoom video conferences as a way to combat the mental exhaustion that some workers experience due to coronavirus pandemic. Fridays will be a non-Zoom day for internal meetings, CEO Jane Fraser said on Monday in a company memo.
“After listening to colleagues around the world, it became clear that we need to combat the ‘zoom fatigue’ that many of us experience,” said Fraser in the memo, which was shared with CBS MoneyWatch.
In countries where Friday is part of the weekend, such as some parts of the Middle East, a different day will be designated as Zoom-free. Calls to customers or government regulators will still take place on Fridays.
Fraser, who formally ascended to the post of CEO at Citi last month, he encouraged employees to set “healthy work limits” and avoid scheduling calls outside business hours. “[T]The confusion between home and work and the relentless pandemic workday affected our well-being, “she said in the memo.
“[W]When our work regularly spills over into the evenings, late nights and weekends, it can prevent us from fully recharging, and that’s not good for you or ultimately for Citi, “said the memo. Fraser also designated a holiday for the entire company on Friday, May 28, nicknamed “Citi Reset Day”, to offer an early start of the holiday weekend to Memorial Day on May 31 this year.
Back to the office
Fraser hopes that the majority of Citi employees will eventually return to the office at least half a time after the pandemic subsides and vaccinations happen widely across the country. But the transition back won’t happen for a while, she wrote, noting that “a return to any kind of normalcy is still a few months away for many of us”.
Even after the banking giant has resumed normal operations, most jobs will consist of hybrid jobs in which employees stay in the office three days a week and work from home two days, according to the memo. Jobs that were totally remote before the pandemic will continue to be done remotely, but the new totally remote jobs will be “rare”, according to Citi. Meanwhile, jobs at Citi data centers and agencies will remain entirely in person.
Fraser saw several advantages to having employees in the same physical location, including easier collaboration, better feedback and learning and a sense of “belonging”.
Citi is one of several large employers who outline their plans for a future in which the majority of Americans are vaccinated against COVID-19. On Monday, Microsoft said its more than 57,000 employees would have the option to work remotely or come to the office as soon as the month is over. Ford said that 30,000 office workers who moved to remote work during the pandemic would be able to maintain teleworking indefinitely.
A recent survey by global outplacement and executive coaching company Challenger Gray & Christmas found that almost 4 out of 5 human resources executives plan to institute a hybrid working model as soon as the pandemic subsides.