The head of Canada’s largest bank has issued what may be the loudest endorsement yet from a Canadian CEO for a return to the office. 

“The absence of working together in many ways has led to productivity and innovation challenges,” Dave McKay said Wednesday during the bank’s first-quarter earnings call. “Society isn’t back together enough and working enough.” 

The remarks clash with declarations by the likes of Shopify and Meta that remote work is here to stay, re-energizing the debate on whether—as most aspects of life return to pre-pandemic normalcy—employees should head back to the office full time.  

Some parts of the world are embracing in-person work more than others. In France, two-thirds of workers were back in office five days a week by the start of 2022, according to a study for the French think tank Fondation Jean-Jaurès. And 57 per cent of Spanish workers were in the office full time. 

But employees in North American cities have been reluctant to leave their home offices. One study found that while 49 per cent of Manhattan office workers were back at the workplace on an average weekday, less than 10 per cent were there five days a week, as of mid-September 2022. In Toronto, 43 per cent of workers are in the office on an average day, leaving foot traffic in the city among the lowest of North American metros.  

Certainly, remote work is still a priority for a lot of people. San Francisco-based startup Scoop launched an index this week to help job-seekers filter their searches based on how much they’re expected to be in the office. 

McKay said other bosses he speaks with are struggling with the balance of hybrid work, too. (The head of Britain’s leading business lobby group told The Guardian last month that most bosses secretly want all workers back in the office.) While McKay didn’t go as far as to endorse in-office work five days a week—some believe doing so could lead to a mass workers’ revolt—he said attendance needs to be higher than it is now. 

McKay justified the stance with vague, familiar comments about restoring company culture and optimizing creativity and productivity. But he also acknowledged that calling workers back to the office could help address risks in the company’s real estate portfolio. “That’s part of the reason,” he said, “but it’s not going to be returned to pre-pandemic levels either. So there is going to be some dislocation.… We don’t have the final model yet.”