Starling Bank is allowing engineers to keep working from home after complaints

Starling Bank had ambitious plans to bring its staff back into the office for a minimum of ten days per month. Now, after backlash and criticism over office space, the fintech has backtracked... for engineers at least.

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Starling's tech team is now no longer mandated to come in the minimum ten days each month. A Starling Bank engineer told us that this because "there's such a huge amount of employees" in engineering that the offices are simply unable to accommodate them all. The lack of office space is one of the most frequently cited negatives in Glassdoor reviews for the fintech, and the Guardian claims it has a third as many desks as it does employees. Starling Bank said that it is not at full capacity and that there "remains sufficient desk space," but did not respond to a request for comment regarding the change in hybrid policy for engineers.

The bank says the desks in the offices are zoned into teams, and that employees must book desks in order to be seated next to team-members. The breadth of the 'teams' in which they are zoned isn't clear, but one engineer told us, "if you do get a seat in the office, you're not necessarily near any of your coworkers."

Starling introduced its 10 days a month in the office policy two weeks ago. It followed a period of hybrid working during which the approach was more lax, and there was no standard for office time. Some employees live in rural areas or in locations otherwise hours away from an office like Scotland; others live five minutes from the office.

Under the revised arrangement, engineers have said they are expected to come in once per week. 

The change in work from home policy has been blamed on new CEO, Raman Bhatia, who has caught "a lot of internal flack" for the change. He has his supporters, though; one said the hate "isn't entirely justified," and that Starling is in a tricky situation as it attempts to get rid of its "startup culture" for something more organized.

Employees have already left Starling over the change in policy, but those working in the office five days per week at investment banks might be envious. A recent study from the International Workplace Group said that 75% of recruitment agencies saw candidates reject job offers from companies that don't have remote working, while two thirds of agencies saw an increase in candidates on the market from firms mandating five in-office days per week.

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