Whatever Reed Hastings thinks about it, working from home has worked out pretty well for Wall Street. Entirely predictably quarterly earnings catastrophes aside, the instantaneous shifting of traders from their floors, offices and cubicles to their country houses, home offices and kitchen tables has gone remarkable—indeed, shockingly—smoothly. And that’s got some people, notably bank executives, thinking: Christian Sewing’s thinking that people should maybe come to the office twice a week at most. Sergio Ermotti’s thinking that as many as a third of his people maybe never have to come back to the office at all. Jes Staley’s not so sure he’s ready to go the full WFH, but the future Barclays office may be more suburban strip mall than City skyscraper.
Jamie Dimon’s not so sure. This probably has something to do with the monument to Jamie Dimon that he’s building on Park Avenue. And though it’s not going to be finished for another three or four years, maybe not even until after Marianne Lake takes over, the Khaleesi of Wall Street doesn’t want his charges getting too comfortable in Scarsdale or Staatsburgh or Squaw Valley in the interim, or taking too big a bath on their Manhattan places only to have to buy new ones once the market stabilizes.
JPMorgan Chase & Co. executives told senior employees of the bank’s giant sales and trading operation that they and their teams must return to the office by Sept. 21…. Trading chief Troy Rohrbaugh and Marc Badrichani, the bank’s global head of sales and research, delivered the message in conference calls Wednesday morning, the people said. The two executives said employees with child-care issues and medical conditions that make them more vulnerable to coronavirus complications can continue working from home….
Messrs. Rohrbaugh and Badrichani told employees that camaraderie would suffer and junior staffers wouldn’t get the training they need if trading staff remained at home full time, according to people familiar with the matter./To prepare employees for the transition, JPMorgan recently pushed out a mandatory training program explaining the new office rules, the people said. Animated figures wearing masks outline hand-washing procedures and hallway etiquette.
JPMorgan Top Brass Tell Trading-Floor Staff to Come Back to the Office [WSJ]