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July 14, 2023 at 04:16 PM
Charles Schwab is giving thousands of employees a reprieve from a recently announced return-to-office mandate as it moves instead to shut U.S. offices in five cities and downsize in six others.
A Schwab spokesperson confirmed Friday that company offices will be closing Oct. 1 in Atlanta, San Antonio, San Diego, St. Louis and Tampa, and that the firm has told employees its offices are being reduced in size at single locations in Boston; Henderson, Nevada; Jersey City, New Jersey; and San Francisco; as well as at two spots in Chicago. The smaller locations will remain in place or be moved to nearby areas.
“In an effort to efficiently use resources to support our clients, our employees, and our stockholders, we have evaluated our real estate footprint,” the spokesperson said in a statement supplied to ThinkAdvisor Friday afternoon.
“We will close some of our smaller locations with modest levels of in-office attendance or reduce or move our footprint in others,” the spokesman explained. “There are no changes to our larger centers and corporate campuses or to our branch footprint.”
The spokesperson added: “There will be no impact to client service. Employees assigned to a closing location will move to full-time remote work and employees in a location that is reducing in size or moving will be eligible for remote work.”
See: Charles Schwab Sweeps 1 Million Clients Into Private Client Services
About 5% of Schwab’s staff are “assigned to locations that are closing and on a busy day less than 50% may physically be in one of these offices,” the spokesperson said.
In reporting on an internal memo shared with Schwab employees, Citywire reported on July 7 that the firm “cited low in-person attendance and a need to ‘efficiently use resources’ as reasons for reducing its real estate footprint.”
More Developments
Charles Schwab said July 10 that retail investor clients with more than $1 million in assets at the firm will be automatically enrolled into Schwab Private Client Services, while clients with $10 million and up will be enrolled in Schwab Private Wealth Services.
