Back to office blues: Is the Wall Street tone audible in remote work? | Bank News
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Mark, vice president of a global bank, has a bucolic courtyard from his office in suburban New Jersey. Between virtual meetings, he takes quick breaks to get in touch with his two primary school children and talk to his wife about dinner logistics.
“Overall, working from home has been amazing for our family,” Mark said, urging Al Jazeera not to use his last name because of work concerns. “I’m even more productive because I don’t travel and I can move forward in meaningful ways at home.”
That work-life balance they’ve just achieved will end this summer, however, when Mark expects to call the office like the U.S. financial industry. The heads of the big companies on Wall Street have made it clear that remote work is not working for them, and that employees are following it properly.
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon confirm working from home “announced that he doesn’t want to work” earlier this month and announced that “in September, sometime in October, he will look like he did before”.
For its part, Goldman Sachs has told employees to “make plans to be able to return to office” by June 14 in the US and June 21 in the UK.
Mark does not work for Goldman Sachs or JP Morgan, but believes the policies of the two major banks will be a precedent in the industry. Mark worries that he and his family will lose the profits they made last year by wearing a suit and tie and returning to New York for nearly two hours.
“That’s why [the commute], I know I’m not going to be as present as I will be, ”Mark said.
And not only is Mark worried about his intelligence sitting in traffic or on the train, his wife will once again be in charge of taking care of the nursery because of the more flexible part-time work schedule.
“I was working a lot, but I was here,” she said last year with her sons. “I knew the names of their teachers; I could make lunch. I felt like we were a partnership. And I feel like we’re going to lose that. “
‘Something is changing’
The discussion of remote work goes beyond the financial world, as companies create ways to return to the office to leave some employees very well, such as those responsible for the care of the elderly and children. Some fear that the corporate culture in favor of what could have been in the office longer will also be pushed back.
Last week, WeWork CEO Sandeep Mathrani said “those who are least engaged are very comfortable working from home” to The Wall Street Journal’s Future of Everything Festival audience.
His comment provoked a swift reaction, but fear also indicated an unusual attitude among the directors.
Compensation will come at a time when it does not become an essential factor. If a company offers $ 1.2 million, and if one offers $ 1 million, but has the opportunity to work from home, flexibility can gain when it comes to hiring top talent.
Experts, however, say the “new normal” continues to change around remote work and that exceptions will become the norm. For example, plans to return to work at JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs allow some employees to work remotely based on their roles, and occupational limitations mean employees will move into the office at a planned hybrid schedule in the future.
“The big banks are calling people back, but you’re also seeing the footprint shrink, so something is changing,” said Al Jazeera executive coach Roy Cohen and author of The Wall Street Professional’s book Survival Guide.
However, Cohen cautioned that personal workplaces can have a competitive advantage over those that offer completely remote options.
“Understanding an organization’s corporate culture is almost impossible if you’re not within the organization,” Cohen said. “And you need to make sure you have older people in leadership and mentoring. I think there will be some stumbling blocks to find out what companies work for and what employees will accept.”
‘Flexibility can win’
The other aspect of the coin is that companies will have to prove to employees why they need to be in an office for more than a year after working remotely. Cohen has seen this dynamic play out in interviews with coaching clients.
“His client feels confident that his company will accept hybrid hours,” he said. “He knows he’s valuable and he knows his bank will work to keep him.”
Aleksandar Tomic, dean of strategy, innovation and technology at Woods College of Advancing Studies at Boston College, believes remote respect opportunities will continue to be the focus for retaining talent, especially for hiring management-level talent.
“I don’t think companies will have a problem hiring entry-level employees [to work onsite]but I think things will get complicated when you’re looking for talent, ”Tomic told Al Jazeera.
“Compensation will come at a time when they don’t become essential agents. If a company offers $ 1.2 million, and one offers $ 1 million but the opportunity to work from home, flexibility can gain in hiring key talent.”
The pandemic brought about a paradigm shift in terms of what people expect from their workplace, and it seems that workplaces that empathize with workers seem to be thriving.
Tomic’s prediction is echoed by statistics. According to a survey of more than 5,000 U.S. employees by management consulting firm McKinsey, nearly a third of employees would like to work full-time remotely, and more than a quarter said employers would think changing if their organization fully returned to local work.
But of course, many employees don’t have the luxury of weighing in on millions of dollars of job offers.
Tomic believes that strict “return to office” mandates can disproportionately affect women, parents and minorities who have been less valuable at work in the past, and can move on to roles that are committed to people who can commit full-time. site employment.
If the ideas that link performance to presence continue, those employees may lose opportunities for advancement or promotion, he said.
“I don’t think the question is, you can work from home, but you can really move forward at home,” Tomic said.
‘This horrible stranger’
Thus, people who have the opportunity to continue working remotely or return to the office may be the ones who suffer the most uncertainty.
“I find the stranger horrible,” Laura told Al Jazeera, who works for a tech company in New York and doesn’t want to use her last name because of the employer’s sensitivity. “I feel on the one hand, they tell us we can choose. And on the surface, it looks great. But then I ask myself: is it a real opportunity? In a way, the “get back to work” order makes it easier because you know what’s expected of you. ”
Research by Catalyst, a global nonprofit aimed at building equity and inclusion for working women, has found that all parents played a productive role during the COVID-19 pandemic, with mothers suffering the most. [File: Stefan Wermuth/Bloomberg]
Laura is under pressure already. The director told the team he expected them in the office in early June.
Laura has two children between the ages of five and nine who are on a hybrid school schedule in the city of Jersey City, New Jersey, and says it is “impossible” to learn a child care opportunity in the last two weeks.
Her manager told her they could find some “possible” rooms, which makes Laura feel stressed and unsure if she could miss “special dispensations” to continue working remotely.
Women have been overly affected by the burden of juggling distance learning and work.
Research by Catalyst, a global nonprofit aimed at building equity and inclusion for working women, has found that all parents played a productive role during the COVID-19 pandemic, with mothers suffering the most.
A Catalyst-CNBC survey they found that 41% of mothers (and 36% of fathers) had to hide their struggles to take care of their employer and that parents, in particular, feared that their companies would be the first to go down.
“Women, parents and people of color suffered undue damage during the pandemic,” Lauren Pasquarella Daley, Catalyst’s director general of Women and the Future of Work, told Al Jazeera.
“I think we’re looking at two things that companies are looking at when they go back to work: First, organizations don’t create two levels of work, some people get benefits from being in the office, and second, they make flexibility for employees who haven’t had access to remote job opportunities. and it’s building, ”he said.
This, Daley explained, means using technology as a way for shift workers to control their time and schedules.
Daley also believes that some companies with a firm deadline to “get back to work” don’t fit the culture.
“The pandemic brought about a paradigm shift in terms of what people expect from their workplace,” he said, “and it seems that workplaces that really empathize with employees are moving forward.”
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