Royal Bank of Canada Says Staff Must Be Vaccinated Before Returning to Offices
Royal Bank of Canada Says Staff Must Be Vaccinated Before Returning to Offices
(Bloomberg) -- Royal Bank of Canada said it will require employees to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 to work in the bank’s offices, joining Morgan Stanley and other firms in restricting access to some locations as the Delta variant spreads.
Toronto-based RBC said it will begin by asking Canadian and U.S. employees to confirm their vaccination status. They’ll have to be vaccinated by Oct. 31 to work on the bank’s premises, Chief Human Resources Officer Helena Gottschling said in a memo to staff.
The policy will eventually apply to RBC’s offices in other countries “where permissible,” according to the memo, which was reported first by the Globe and Mail newspaper.
The highly-transmissible Delta variant is upending plans on Wall Street and other financial centers to bring back more employees back in September. Firms including Citigroup Inc., Capital One Financial Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. are restricting the office access of unvaccinated employees, pushing back plans to reopen or imposing new requirements for masks or vaccine-status disclosure.
“Increasingly, governments and organizations around the world are announcing plans to make vaccinations mandatory and many are adjusting guidance related to mask use, self-isolation and social distancing,” RBC’s Gottschling said.
That includes Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government last week announced a new policy to make vaccinations mandatory for federal government staff and many employees in the airline and railway sectors. The government indicated it would also be coming out with guidelines for the financial institutions it regulates, including banks and life insurers.
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