Dive Brief:
- Most employees at Capital One's U.S. call centers for cards will work from home after the coronavirus pandemic ends, the McLean, Virginia-based bank said in a memo seen Thursday by Bloomberg.
- The bank extended the remote-work option for the rest of its employees until the end of March, the memo said.
- The directive comes about a week after fellow card titan Synchrony Financial announced it would let all of its U.S. employees work from home permanently.
Dive Insight:
Capital One's lean into remote work further illustrates the divide between the policies of branch- and investment-heavy retail models and those with an emphasis on cards and payments. While banks such as JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs pushed to repopulate their offices in September — and, in some cases, needed to send workers home after some tested COVID-positive — card networks such as American Express have extended their remote-work policies through June.
Capital One, which had previously said it would let employees work from home at least through the end of this year, is clearly following the path forged by American Express and, more recently, Synchrony.
"Your well-being is our top priority," CEO Richard Fairbank told employees in this week's memo. "I've been inspired by your resilience and determination. Creating home offices and learning new ways to work together. Talking to customers one minute and being schoolteachers the next."
About 20% of Capital One's U.S. card call-center employees worked from home before the pandemic. That figure is expected to increase to 90%, Bloomberg reported.
"We stand on the shoulders of a multiyear technology transformation that allows us to be successful in ways that would have been impossible just years ago," Fairbank said.
