Go to the office 4 to 5 times a week if you're young and want to score a promotion, says a corporate leader

• Junior staff should be in the office four to five times a week if they want to be successful, PwC's UK chair told Bloomberg.
• Face time is important because AI is taking over tasks that junior staff used to be trained on.
• Companies have been struggling with how to manage remote work following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Junior employees should show up at the office more often if they want to score promotions, says a corporate leader.

"If you're asking me my opinion on how you succeed in your career," Kevin Ellis, the chair of PricewaterhouseCoopers UK, said. "I'd be in the office four to five days a week."

Face time is important because generative AI is taking over tasks that junior staff were "trained and cut their teeth on" in the past, Ellis told Bloomberg at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday.

With AI now a part of the workplace, face time and getting people together in the office is important, he added.

That, however, is proving easier said than done. Companies have been struggling with how to manage remote work following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Some corporate leaders — including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon and Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon — have said younger workers should show up to the office more often for mentorship and career opportunities.

A US survey of 1,190 full-time employees in December showed employees do pay a professional price for being able to work from home, with remote employees the least likely to get promotions and raises in 2023. The survey was commissioned by Resume Builder.

As for how the advice will be received by Gen Z — who were born between 1997 and 2012, and are currently the youngest members of the workforce — right now, it sounds like it's anyone's guess. That's because, as my colleague Amanda Goh wrote last year, the generation still can't make up its mind about going into the office.