Nationwide: We are going to keep working from home

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to improve their climate literacy so as to understand the projected impacts from the expanding climate crisis and how to adapt their workplaces in the face of these impacts.

In early March, 26,460 of Nationwide’s 27,000 employees started working from home. That’s 98% of the company.

How did this impact productivity?

“We’ve tracked all of our key performance indicators, and there has been no change.” — Kirt Walker, CEO Nationwide

In fact it’s gone so well, they are switching to working this way permanently. As a result they are closing over 20 offices across the country and only keeping four. Cost savings from this will be substantial.

On why they are making this move, Walker said:

“At the end of the day, we looked at key historical events that shaped society: the Great Depression, the 1918 pandemics, WWI and WWII, 9/11, and the financial crisis. During these crises people reduced consumption, grew more frugal. After the crisis, worry continued and it was a permanent mindset shift. That’s really important. We think the world is changing. We’ve got to take cost out of the system. We want to enable sustainable growth.”

This is an extremely smart move, considering the next crisis we have to meet head on.