The big four accountancy firm PwC has intensified the way it tracks how often its UK employees come into the office by monitoring swipes of work passes and connections to wifi, prompting concerns among staff.
Bosses use a dashboard to record attendance and check whether workers are adhering to the company policy that requires them to spend three days a week, or 60% of their time, with clients or in the office.
The panel shows staff as “amber” if they fall below the 60% threshold, while workers show as “red” if they drop below 40%.
The dashboard was first available for use by supervisors in April, while the office attendance data can reportedly be viewed by business unit leaders, as well as PwC’s chief financial, administrative and people officers. Employees are also able to access their own data.
Employees’ wifi connections from their laptop are traced by the system to check whether they are working from client sites on the days expected, according to the Financial Times, which first reported details of the system. This is then cross-referenced with information from staff time sheets and the company’s HR platform.
The increased scrutiny of office attendance is causing unease among PwC’s 23,000-strong UK workforce, and one senior staff member told the FT they had “lost count” of the number of colleagues who had shared concerns about the monitoring. Another person reportedly said workers were seeking more transparency from their employer about the tracking.
Employees who breached the accountancy and consultancy firm’s office attendance policy could face formal sanctions that could affect their bonus and performance rating, according to the report, which said those unable to meet the attendance rules because of sickness or for family reasons can request allowances.
PwC told UK employees last September that it was going to start tracking their working locations from January, to ensure that all workers spend “a minimum of three days a week” in the office or at client sites amid a clampdown on remote working.
The company told staff in a memo it would track their locations in the same way it monitors how many chargeable hours they work, as the company looked to place “more emphasis on in-person working”.
The rival firm EY began monitoring office attendance at the start of last year using staff turnstile data in an effort to crack down on breaches of its hybrid working policy.
PwC UK’s chief people officer, Phillippa O’Connor, told the House of Lords home-based working committee in April that the company’s monitoring was “not clocking people in and out”.
She added: “This is not an old-school manufacturing world; it is about empowered flexibility – they have attended an office in our world. Where we do not have that data, we look at shared IP.”
PwC said there were “clear benefits to in-person work for both our people and clients” and the approach was “consistent with other businesses” and “recognised and accepted by the vast majority of our people”.
A spokesperson said: “We always listen to feedback and are committed to regular, clear and transparent communications about expectations … The dashboard ensures our people have easy access to their attendance data, so they can manage and plan their time in a way that works for them, our teams and our clients.”
PwC said the firm remains “committed to flexibility” and allows employees to condense their usual working hours and finish early on Friday lunchtime for six weeks over the summer.
