Revamped interiors and flexible working plan at City HQ look to usher in new dawn for thousands of returning staff
It was a lingering reminder of Royal Bank of Scotland’s former boss Fred Goodwin: the blue and yellow carpets that were allegedly handpicked by the disgraced banker, who was blamed for the bank’s near-collapse more than a decade ago and was subsequently stripped of his knighthood.
But NatWest – which scrapped the toxic RBS Group name last year in the hope of moving on from past scandals – has done away with the old, by ripping out carpets, ditching office phones and installing Zoom-enabled meeting rooms, as it ushers in a new era of hybrid working turbocharged by the Covid crisis.