'If you can eat out, you can go to the office'
Discussion
BBC said:
The boss of a US investment bank is cracking down on employees reluctant to return to work as restrictions ease.
Morgan Stanley chief executive James Gorman said: "If you can go into a restaurant in New York City, you can come into the office."
Speaking at a conference, Mr Gorman said he would be "very disappointed" if US-based workers had not returned by September.
...
Mr Gorman said on Monday that Morgan Stanley is not yet setting a minimum number of days that US staff will be required to be on-site.
But he cautioned that may change if employees do not return by Labor Day, a US public holiday on 6 September.
"Make no mistake about it. We do our work inside Morgan Stanley offices, and that's where we teach, that's where our interns learn, that's how we develop people," he said.
He added that during the pandemic the bank's operations had become more flexible. But he was resistant to the idea of employees working out-of-state: "If you want to get paid New York rates, you work in New York," he said.
Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57487963Morgan Stanley chief executive James Gorman said: "If you can go into a restaurant in New York City, you can come into the office."
Speaking at a conference, Mr Gorman said he would be "very disappointed" if US-based workers had not returned by September.
...
Mr Gorman said on Monday that Morgan Stanley is not yet setting a minimum number of days that US staff will be required to be on-site.
But he cautioned that may change if employees do not return by Labor Day, a US public holiday on 6 September.
"Make no mistake about it. We do our work inside Morgan Stanley offices, and that's where we teach, that's where our interns learn, that's how we develop people," he said.
He added that during the pandemic the bank's operations had become more flexible. But he was resistant to the idea of employees working out-of-state: "If you want to get paid New York rates, you work in New York," he said.
I think the biggest issue with WFH in the longer term is the induction and training of new staff.
In a professional firm trainees join after university and absorb so much simply by being in the office environment and watching and listening to more senior staff, quite apart from formal training and guidance.
Then there is the feeling of belonging to the group that one gets by being in the same space as fellow staff and the building of a team spirit (at least in theory).
I think WFH is fine for staff who have been with a company for a while and know what to do and how to do it. I would put myself in that category. However, I only achieved the level of expertise that I have by learning and absorbing knowledge and skills from more senior staff over the years.
I accept that we will never go back to the way we were before the pandemic, and there will be different approaches from different business sectors, but I believe that over the next few months there will be a trickle back to the office and in a few years time most ‘office jobs’ will be done most of the time from offices.
In a professional firm trainees join after university and absorb so much simply by being in the office environment and watching and listening to more senior staff, quite apart from formal training and guidance.
Then there is the feeling of belonging to the group that one gets by being in the same space as fellow staff and the building of a team spirit (at least in theory).
I think WFH is fine for staff who have been with a company for a while and know what to do and how to do it. I would put myself in that category. However, I only achieved the level of expertise that I have by learning and absorbing knowledge and skills from more senior staff over the years.
I accept that we will never go back to the way we were before the pandemic, and there will be different approaches from different business sectors, but I believe that over the next few months there will be a trickle back to the office and in a few years time most ‘office jobs’ will be done most of the time from offices.
Its fairly common in banks, particularly US ones to have annual large staff (graduate / trainee) intakes. Its not really practical to have 3-500 new starters on a work from home basis – especially when they are only armed with an academic qualification and nadda practical experience. What we have experienced in the UK, is that even some of those with good academic degrees have either a massive lack of common sense or some form of entitlement that needs smacking out of them. And that’s before I moan about the Mickey Mouse degrees that somehow get through HR screening (or quotas). WFH is more feasible for experienced staff, but that creates a vacuum of experienced staff to teach the new intakes AND creates a potential “them and us” culture.
It also depends on the type of role. Your operational support is often located outside the main city centres (for cost) and this can more easily be WFH given is procedural nature. If you want to be on the dealing floor, you really need to be in the office – unless are experienced enough or have pretty good tech set-up. If you need a wall of monitors (I had 6 + 2 Video conference thingies to talk direct to other locations) and a dealer board; its not practical for trainees (and probably cost prohibitive).
It might be (like all of these reports), Mike is only talking to a smaller subset of staff (the intakes); and is removing the entitlement off the bat (but media want to whip up a non-story). Goldman did the same thing recently, especially after some of the 6 figure + Corporate Finance intake having a cry about long hours. Its 6 figures with no experience for a very good reason. You need to weed out the Rishi Sunaks fast (as they did).
It also depends on the type of role. Your operational support is often located outside the main city centres (for cost) and this can more easily be WFH given is procedural nature. If you want to be on the dealing floor, you really need to be in the office – unless are experienced enough or have pretty good tech set-up. If you need a wall of monitors (I had 6 + 2 Video conference thingies to talk direct to other locations) and a dealer board; its not practical for trainees (and probably cost prohibitive).
It might be (like all of these reports), Mike is only talking to a smaller subset of staff (the intakes); and is removing the entitlement off the bat (but media want to whip up a non-story). Goldman did the same thing recently, especially after some of the 6 figure + Corporate Finance intake having a cry about long hours. Its 6 figures with no experience for a very good reason. You need to weed out the Rishi Sunaks fast (as they did).
stongle said:
It also depends on the type of role. Your operational support is often located outside the main city centres (for cost) and this can more easily be WFH given is procedural nature. If you want to be on the dealing floor, you really need to be in the office – unless are experienced enough or have pretty good tech set-up. If you need a wall of monitors (I had 6 + 2 Video conference thingies to talk direct to other locations) and a dealer board; its not practical for trainees (and probably cost prohibitive).
It might be (like all of these reports), Mike is only talking to a smaller subset of staff (the intakes); and is removing the entitlement off the bat (but media want to whip up a non-story).
This is about it.It might be (like all of these reports), Mike is only talking to a smaller subset of staff (the intakes); and is removing the entitlement off the bat (but media want to whip up a non-story).
FazerBoy said:
I think the biggest issue with WFH in the longer term is the induction and training of new staff.
In a professional firm trainees join after university and absorb so much simply by being in the office environment and watching and listening to more senior staff, quite apart from formal training and guidance.
Then there is the feeling of belonging to the group that one gets by being in the same space as fellow staff and the building of a team spirit (at least in theory).
I think WFH is fine for staff who have been with a company for a while and know what to do and how to do it. I would put myself in that category. However, I only achieved the level of expertise that I have by learning and absorbing knowledge and skills from more senior staff over the years.
I accept that we will never go back to the way we were before the pandemic, and there will be different approaches from different business sectors, but I believe that over the next few months there will be a trickle back to the office and in a few years time most ‘office jobs’ will be done most of the time from offices.
you will only know you have a problem 3 years down the line when interns can't take the next step up due to lack of proper training. In a professional firm trainees join after university and absorb so much simply by being in the office environment and watching and listening to more senior staff, quite apart from formal training and guidance.
Then there is the feeling of belonging to the group that one gets by being in the same space as fellow staff and the building of a team spirit (at least in theory).
I think WFH is fine for staff who have been with a company for a while and know what to do and how to do it. I would put myself in that category. However, I only achieved the level of expertise that I have by learning and absorbing knowledge and skills from more senior staff over the years.
I accept that we will never go back to the way we were before the pandemic, and there will be different approaches from different business sectors, but I believe that over the next few months there will be a trickle back to the office and in a few years time most ‘office jobs’ will be done most of the time from offices.
As a contractor I go to clients I have never met before an am there 6 months to 2 years then off to a new project, beyond the this is the email software and storage method ae use that is about it training wise. There are 5m freelancers in the UK of a workforce or circa 20m....so you know we don't all need training an to "listen to senior people" in thr office. A mix is the right approach I believe. Its also good for the environment and governments keep banging on about it so less travel is a good thing. If I were a grad at goldmans yeah then I would want to be there each day. But for me that was 21 years ago (CSFB in my case), i learnt alot but honestly from senior managers lol no I learnt at 23 I could work 14 hour days day in day out, i learnt servers were much more efficient pre 8am and post 6pm if you had a load of analysis to do and I learnt that a lot of people sat there till 9pm to be seen but did f all.
Each firm is different an so all office, all remote a mix of the two won't be a one size fits all solution for a firm or a team.
Each firm is different an so all office, all remote a mix of the two won't be a one size fits all solution for a firm or a team.
FazerBoy said:
I think the biggest issue with WFH in the longer term is the induction and training of new staff.
In a professional firm trainees join after university and absorb so much simply by being in the office environment and watching and listening to more senior staff, quite apart from formal training and guidance.
Then there is the feeling of belonging to the group that one gets by being in the same space as fellow staff and the building of a team spirit (at least in theory).
I think WFH is fine for staff who have been with a company for a while and know what to do and how to do it. I would put myself in that category. However, I only achieved the level of expertise that I have by learning and absorbing knowledge and skills from more senior staff over the years.
I accept that we will never go back to the way we were before the pandemic, and there will be different approaches from different business sectors, but I believe that over the next few months there will be a trickle back to the office and in a few years time most ‘office jobs’ will be done most of the time from offices.
Can’t add much to this. Having spent 26 years in a PS firm, it is the junior people who are suffering badly in this new world. We’ve had WFH flexibility for years - even in the 90s when I wanted to do something specific, there was no problem saying “I’ll do this at home in peace and quiet, I’ll send the results over in the evening”. I suspect we will go back to that quite briskly. People whose jobs are genuinely unaffected by WFH will end up being offshored or automated. In a professional firm trainees join after university and absorb so much simply by being in the office environment and watching and listening to more senior staff, quite apart from formal training and guidance.
Then there is the feeling of belonging to the group that one gets by being in the same space as fellow staff and the building of a team spirit (at least in theory).
I think WFH is fine for staff who have been with a company for a while and know what to do and how to do it. I would put myself in that category. However, I only achieved the level of expertise that I have by learning and absorbing knowledge and skills from more senior staff over the years.
I accept that we will never go back to the way we were before the pandemic, and there will be different approaches from different business sectors, but I believe that over the next few months there will be a trickle back to the office and in a few years time most ‘office jobs’ will be done most of the time from offices.
I’ve spent quite a bit of time with clients and my own people in the office over the last few months - the feeling across two (large) organisations is that WFH is a disaster.
I get the under lying principle but Some organisations have irreversibly redesigned the offices space so it’s impossible for the pre-COVID workforce to be on site at any one time. My employer has reduced capacity by at least 40% to comply with present social distancing etc but also because it was already over populated for the space/facilities
pablo said:
I get the under lying principle but Some organisations have irreversibly redesigned the offices space so it’s impossible for the pre-COVID workforce to be on site at any one time. My employer has reduced capacity by at least 40% to comply with present social distancing etc but also because it was already over populated for the space/facilities
It’s not just the physical office but how you get them up there in the first place. Most high rise office buildings have social distance measures for using lifts with limited numbers using them at any one time and one way systems in place reducing further the ability to get up to your particular floor. If it takes an hour just to get from the street to your cubicle then it becomes unworkable. It’s stuff like this, amongst everything else, that’s contributing to the prevention of returning to the office.
Social distancing has to go completely before you can have total normality in the office workplace.
pablo said:
I get the under lying principle but Some organisations have irreversibly redesigned the offices space so it’s impossible for the pre-COVID workforce to be on site at any one time. My employer has reduced capacity by at least 40% to comply with present social distancing etc but also because it was already over populated for the space/facilities
Not many office changes are really irreversible …. Both ours and my current clients is set up for 20% occupancy at the moment due to social distancing, but that is just stickers and tape.IMO it all depends on where the centre of gravity shifts to. Say it starts with the junior people - because they need training and contact. Now in my organisation, there is competition for junior people - I need to persuade them that my part of the business is interesting, has nice people in it and a decent career path. How do I do that? I go to the office to actually meet them. How will people get access to me? In the office …. and so it moves on.
I’m already seeing evidence of this. We had a big design session recently, and the view amongst everyone in the room (physically) was that at the next session, everyone needed to be onsite. If you can’t be arsed to come in, we’re not really interested in your opinion on the end of a phone.
I kind of get his sentiment, but where I work a system has been put in place to book a desk so we can maintain social distancing. If all the desks are booked you're wfh whether you want to or not. Personally I'll be glad to return even if only 1 -2 days a week just for the human interaction if nothing else.
There is some need to shadow and work with others to learn, but what I have seen is that a lot of this “must be in the office to learn” is about two things:
1) managers being to lazy to actually set expectations, goals, articulate the direction of the team, or create proper SOPs and training materials.
2) wanting to induct people in to the team’s culture, even when that is irrelevant, or even toxic, just to be “one of the tribe”.
People need to start asking “why”. So much of this push by some companies just seems to be because “that’s the way we do it”.
1) managers being to lazy to actually set expectations, goals, articulate the direction of the team, or create proper SOPs and training materials.
2) wanting to induct people in to the team’s culture, even when that is irrelevant, or even toxic, just to be “one of the tribe”.
People need to start asking “why”. So much of this push by some companies just seems to be because “that’s the way we do it”.
Where on one level I agree with this guy's specific example, how to bring on junior staff and teach them the ropes, on the other hand I think he's completely missing the point. The world has moved on and his company needs to as many people will just vote with their feet and go somewhere that allows this flexibility.
I'm a contractor, and have been with the same, very large company for quite a while (inside IR35). Every couple of years I move to a new role within the same company after having helped people in those other teams on an ad-hoc basis when time has allowed.
My efficiency/utilisation has probably gone up by working from home as I'm no longer interrupted every 5 minutes when I'm in the middle of writing macros or setting up automated reports in Excel/PowerBI/Qlik/etc.
However, this also means the ad-hoc assistance I was providing to teams around me (about 150 people) has reduced significantly.
I've already discussed it with my line manager, and have been told that I'm not expected back in the office before the end of my current contract (end of the year). His reasoning was that I would get more done as I wasn't spending 4 hours on Monday morning and Friday afternoon travelling...didn't have the heart to tell him that I travel outside of office hours to avoid the traffic and he'll be getting no extra hours out of me
So overall, I'm getting more of my proper job done in less time...but am losing the relationships with other teams where I'd expect my next role to come from.
My efficiency/utilisation has probably gone up by working from home as I'm no longer interrupted every 5 minutes when I'm in the middle of writing macros or setting up automated reports in Excel/PowerBI/Qlik/etc.
However, this also means the ad-hoc assistance I was providing to teams around me (about 150 people) has reduced significantly.
I've already discussed it with my line manager, and have been told that I'm not expected back in the office before the end of my current contract (end of the year). His reasoning was that I would get more done as I wasn't spending 4 hours on Monday morning and Friday afternoon travelling...didn't have the heart to tell him that I travel outside of office hours to avoid the traffic and he'll be getting no extra hours out of me
So overall, I'm getting more of my proper job done in less time...but am losing the relationships with other teams where I'd expect my next role to come from.
Edited by mmm-five on Wednesday 16th June 14:17
I see it from both sides having worked in Banking and more recently in the Big4 for the last 15 years.
Those offices are not cheap to maintain and in the case of Morgan's who both own and rent buildings for office space there is likely a need to justify the costs.
Juniors and grads would definitely benefit from being 'on the ground' in the office surrounded by seniors, even taking into account the crap managers who do FA and are too lazy or incompetent to provide career direction/development, junior staff would still be at a advantage by seeing how their senior peers operate, networking etc
In Big4 it's different, at least for myself as we are farmed out to clients on a regular basis (I've been at same
client for the last couple of years) so WFH Vs Office makes minimal difference though face to face interaction with clients is always much better IMO for building relationships.
I think Gorman needs to strike a balance and being a big bank am sure they will do so, bit of media bs hype being used to whip up the frenzy. Other banks who I've worked with are fairly flexible, yes some roles may need to be office-based but others will likely be given some leeway for a office/WFH split.
Those offices are not cheap to maintain and in the case of Morgan's who both own and rent buildings for office space there is likely a need to justify the costs.
Juniors and grads would definitely benefit from being 'on the ground' in the office surrounded by seniors, even taking into account the crap managers who do FA and are too lazy or incompetent to provide career direction/development, junior staff would still be at a advantage by seeing how their senior peers operate, networking etc
In Big4 it's different, at least for myself as we are farmed out to clients on a regular basis (I've been at same
client for the last couple of years) so WFH Vs Office makes minimal difference though face to face interaction with clients is always much better IMO for building relationships.
I think Gorman needs to strike a balance and being a big bank am sure they will do so, bit of media bs hype being used to whip up the frenzy. Other banks who I've worked with are fairly flexible, yes some roles may need to be office-based but others will likely be given some leeway for a office/WFH split.
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