When students and pupils return to school on 15 September, Deloitte Luxembourg has made arrangements to accommodate around half of its 2,200 staff to the Cloche d’Or office, talent leader Stephan Tilquin told Delano this week.
To conform with social distancing measures while gathering as many people on site as possible, staff will be split into two cohorts, with members of each group having the option to work from the office on specific days.
The system forms part of the tax, audit and financial advisory firm’s new hybrid working model, implemented after the pandemic accelerated demand for a more flexible approach.
While some employees have never returned to the office since the firm shifted to full-time remote working at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, “some people needed to come back because of their home situation,” the talent leader explained.
Slow adoption
Tilquin said that the framework for remote working was already in place two years before the pandemic began, but adoption was sluggish. “We had the framework, but it wasn’t in their [employees’] habits to make this change,” he said. Fiscal rules in neighbouring countries and European social security limitations on the number of days a cross-border worker can work in their home country without being penalised presented another barrier to remote working adoption. But the temporary suspension of these rules during the pandemic enabled more people to try working from home for longer periods of time.
Stephan Tilquin, pictured, estimates that around a quarter of the workforce is present at the office on any given day Photo: Deloitte Luxembourg
The cross-border factor
that once it is safe to do so, its 20,000-strong workforce will be able to choose where and when they work indefinitely, a move which recognises the shifting needs of its staff.
Deloitte Luxembourg cannot offer the same flexibility for all staff indefinitely--because half of its workforce live outside of the grand duchy and will eventually be subject to tax and social security limits on working from home. However, Tilquin points out that it should not stop any employees living in Luxembourg from working from home for up to five days per week.
The firm’s 31,000m2 headquarters, which opened in Cloche d’Or in 2019, meanwhile, is far from being mothballed and will always have a place in the firm’s strategy, for team collaboration, training and client meetings.
Its Belval satellite office, which Deloitte opened in 2018 in the Terres Rouges building and hosts 230 people from the financial solutions team, will also be retained to handle any future fluctuations, and to house cross-border workers and specific projects. Starting September, staff currently located there will be invited to work from the Cloche d’Or offices or their home, however.
When everyone is at the office, there’s a real energy.
As Tilquin points out: “When everyone is at the office, there’s a real energy.” And that energy is still bubbling away as staff show an appetite to return.
After a pilot return in which staff were sorted into three cohorts with the option to come to the office on specific days, today Tilquin estimates that around a quarter of the workforce is present at the office on any given day, excluding holiday periods.
When the cohorts shift from three groups to two in September, no-one will be forced to work in the office, says Tilquin. However, a physical presence clearly helps new hires better integrate into their teams. After last year’s onboarding process was entirely virtual, “this year will be virtual or physical or both. We’re looking at the three scenarios,” the talent leader explains.
So, when will Deloitte return to 100% office presence? Even if social distancing measures are relaxed, it is unlikely there will ever be a full house at the Cloche d’Or offices, since as Tilquin points out that there is also a third workplace--with the client.