Wells Fargo will keep most employees working from home for at least a month longer than last announced.
“Wells Fargo will extend its current operating model through at least March 1, which is an extension from our prior announcement of Feb. 1,” Chief Operating Officer Scott Powell wrote Wednesday in an all-employee email seen by Bloomberg. “As with previous extensions, we will ask employees who are working from home to continue doing so.”
The lender, with the largest workforce of any U.S. bank, has about 200,000 staffers doing their jobs from home, according to company spokesperson Beth Richek. The San Francisco-based firm had 274,900 employees as of Sept. 30.
Financial firms that quickly shifted their massive workforces to temporary work-from-home setups as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the spring are now making plans to navigate the winter amid a relentless rise in cases. As the U.S. embarks on its ambitious vaccination campaign, many lenders have started to accept the idea that most workers may not be vaccinated until mid-2021 at the earliest.
