Capita CEO tells 35,000 staff they can permanently work from home

Jon Lewis to move call centre staff to hybrid working model

Capita's CEO has told its call centre staff that they can permanently work from home as the outsourcing giant switches to a hybrid working model.

The switch will mean that 35,000 of Capita's 55,000 employees will no longer need to work from a single location.

"Call centres are to some extent, a historic capability today," CEO Jon Lewis told the Press Association.

"There's no reason why you need to put 2,000 people in a warehouse in the UK. Those people can work from home.

"It isn't dead, but there's certainly going to be a lot less of them.

"There may be some financial services activities where, for reasons of security, people have to be in a secure environment, but for many of the things we do, they don't have to be in such a facility."

Lewis alluded to an internal survey which revealed that 72 per cent of Capita staff would prefer to work from home up to three days a week.

The CEO said that those businesses enforcing a back-to-office policy will have a significantly less attractive employee value proposition.

"Young people are inclined to want to work in an office environment because the work environment is a big part of their social life, but if you look at the whole demographic of the workforce in the UK, offering people that flexibility is going to be a very positive element of an overall employee value proposition."

The new work-from-home policy comes as Capita announces plans to close more offices in the UK as part of a plan to save £700m by selling assets and cutting costs.

The firm closed 11 per cent of its office space in 2020 including its head office in London and is looking to reduce space by an additional 15 per cent this year.

Capita's revenues fell by 10 per cent to £3.32bn for calendar year 2020, while profits before tax swung to a £49.4m loss.

Despite the declines, Capita claims it is committed to making 2021 its first year of organic growth for six years and to return to a sustainabile cash generation position in 2022.

The outsourcing giant has meanwhile streamlined its business by merging five divisions into two - government supplier Capita Public Service and enterprise supplier Capita Experience.