BP office staff will continue to work from home for 2 days a week for foreseeable future

Global oil company BP has told its office-based staff that they can expect to continue working from home for two days a week after Covid lockdown restrictions ease. The firm has announced that most of its office-based employees will be asked to work from home for 40 per cent of the time, which equates to two days a week for those who work on a full-time basis. 25,000 BP staff to be affected by new working model The Government is currently recommending that people in England continue to work from home wherever possible, but plans for all legal limits on social contact to be removed from 21 June. However, BP has proposed a new working model which would continue to see some staff working from home for two days a week, even after Covid restrictions come to an end. This is expected to affect 25,000 employees in total, with 6,000 being located in the UK and more than 2,000 of these living in central London. The change to working location comes as part of a cost-cutting drive for the firm, which announced thousands of job cuts last year. During meetings last month, BP informed staff of the changes, suggesting that it would offer them a "more flexible, engaging and dynamic way of working". Many of its office-based employees in the UK have been working from home full-time since the coronavirus pandemic began last March. The company expects the new 60-40 split between office and home working to come into place from this summer. The plan also includes the sale of its London headquarters at St James’s Square. A spokesman for BP told The Guardian: “Some roles will require people to be in the office or their prime location every day, and some roles will require greater travel or connecting digitally with colleagues, with less time in the office. There may also be some colleagues who prefer working in the office more.” BP is not the only company looking at changing the number of staff working in its offices as opposed to working from home, with HSBC also announcing a 40 per cent cut in its office footprint. Lloyds Banking Group is also set to reduce its office space by 20 per cent over two years, after a staff survey found that nearly 80 per cent wanted to work from home for at least three days a week.