Barclays is planning to return nearly 700 of its employees to the UK, US and India offices starting from July, who were working from home during the Covid-19 pandemic.

These employees represent 1% of the London-based bank’s total workforce globally, Bloomberg reported citing people familiar with the matter.

Barclays employs 80,800 people globally, of which more than 40% are based in the UK alone.

Most of the employees returning to work are traders, who can no longer work from home, the bank notified its employees in a memo.

The remaining employees will continue to work from home until at least the end of September 2020, the report added.

The latest implementation of the return-to-work strategy from July embarks the first wave of the bank’s phased-return plan.

The bank believes that the return-to-work strategy will limit the number of people who could be in the office at any one time.

In Hong Kong, Barclays already allowed 60% of its staff to return to their office. HSBC and Goldman Sachs also adopted a similar approach.

Citigroup too is reportedly planning to reopen its New York headquarters and London offices and return a small number of its staff back to offices.

Last month, Deutsche Bank also reopened 80 branches in Germany it had closed temporarily due to the pandemic.