Major Company Is Monitor Its Employees’ Location

One of the largest consulting and accounting firms on the globe has announced plans to monitor its employee’s locations.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, or PwC, has announced that its U.K. branch will monitor its employees’ locations to “ensure compliance with a stricter return-to-office policy.”

Its new policy requires employees to spend 60% of their time at their office or at least three days a week.

In an internal email, PwC told employees that their location data must be shared monthly to ensure employees comply with the new rule.

PwC to track workers’ locations as it orders more time be spent in office
Are you back in the office?https://t.co/lEWAudRJkL#hybridworking

— SW19Lawyers (@SW19Lawyers) September 10, 2024

PwC tells employees it will use location data to police 'back-to-office' rule https://t.co/l2prgU0Ryp

— CTV National News (@CTVNationalNews) September 10, 2024

Here’s what Fox Business reported:

One of the world’s biggest consulting and accounting firms plans to monitor its employees’ locations to ensure compliance with a stricter return-to-office policy set to take effect next year.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, known as PwC, announced that its U.K. branch is “placing more emphasis on in-person working.” It initiated a new policy that requires staff to spend at least three days a week, or 60% of their time, in the office or with clients. That’s up from the previously mandated two to three days in the office or with clients, according to the firm.

In an internal email, staffers were told that the company would be sharing their location data with them on a monthly basis, a PwC spokesperson told FOX Business.

“The new policy tips the balance of our working week into being located alongside clients and colleagues,” PwC U.K. Managing Partner Laura Hinton said, adding that “this feels right for our business and right for our people, given our focus on client service, coaching, and learning and development.”

The policy takes effect in January, which PwC says will give staff time to “plan for these arrangements.”

If an employee’s data shows they are “consistently breaching the policy,” PwC would first seek to understand why, a spokesperson said.

PwC to start tracking working locations of all its UK employees https://t.co/iFqsikpgHT

— Guardian Money (@guardianmoney) September 5, 2024

Per CTV News:

PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) will start tracking where its employees in the United Kingdom work, in a bid to dial back its current work-from-home culture.

Staff at the U.K. arm of PwC, one of the world’s “Big Four” accounting firms, were this week informed by management that the new policy would take effect on Jan. 1.

A memo sent to the company’s 26,000 U.K. employees on Thursday and shared with CNN said the measure was being taken to formalize the company’s “approach to working together in person.”

Employees were told they must spend at least three days a week – or 60 per cent of their time – in the office or with clients. Previous guidelines required them to be in for between two and three days each week, but the memo suggests that was not universally adhered to.

It said: “Our business thrives on strong relationships – and those are almost always more easily built and sustained face-to-face… By being physically together, we can offer our clients a differentiated experience and create the positive learning and coaching environment that is key to our success.”