UBS CEO says staff who don't want Covid-19 vaccine can work from home

Staff who don’t wish to receive a vaccine against the coronavirus can apply to work from home, UBS Group AG Chief Executive Officer Ralph Hamers said, signaling a flexible approach on a topic that’s disrupting banks’ effort to get workers back to their desks.
 

“We have 25,000 employees alone in the U.S. and thousands more in Singapore and Hong Kong, and every country has a different legal framework around what you can and can’t make mandatory” with respect to vaccines, Hamers said at the Swiss Economic Forum in Interlaken on Thursday. “The pandemic has delivered solutions to manage the risk of carrying the virus and passing it to your colleagues, and that is to work from home.”

UBS’ Swiss rival Credit Suisse Group AG has pushed back the date for unvaccinated workers to return to U.S. locations while obliging those with the shot to return to premises by Sept. 7, and Deutsche Bank AG will oblige anyone wanting to enter its U.S. offices to have had the jab. Hamers is rolling out a permanent hybrid working model, allowing at least two thirds of its employees to mix work from home and the office. 

As Switzerland’s largest bank, UBS has around 70,000 staff worldwide.