HSBC set to slash travel budget by half as staff stay closer to home following pandemic
HSBC is set to slash its travel budget by half as staff stay closer to home following the pandemic.
The London-based bank said staff have become accustomed to online video meetings and would have less need to jet around the world for face-to-face events in the coming years.
‘We’ve learned to live and operate in a very different way,’ chief executive Noel Quinn told Bloomberg.
A sign of the times: The London-based bank said staff have become accustomed to online video meetings and would have less need to jet around the world
Under Quinn’s leadership, HSBC – which has more than 200,000 staff – has embarked on a massive cost-cutting plan and is trying to slash 40 per cent of its office space. It has even scrapped its swanky executive floor in its Canary Wharf headquarters, meaning top managers now have to hot-desk on an open-plan office.
The changes should help HSBC to cut its weighty cost base – the bank saved £217m alone last year due to travel restrictions – but fewer business trips will hit airlines and hotels which are already struggling to recover after lockdowns.
But Quinn acknowledged that there would still be some need for offices.
‘I don’t want to lose that DNA and that teamwork,’ he said.