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Yeah, and private equity firms will be luring those bankers away.

Good luck with that.

This will be a hybrid return to work like everything else is hybrid. All the big dick WS banks will insist upon 5 days per week. Everyone else will operate at 3. Big dick banks will pay more to get people. People who are operating at 5 days per week. The second tier banks will continue at 3 days. The talent will go to the 3 day option. The big banks will shit themsleves and go to 3 days per week.

The genie is out of the bottle fuckos.

Morgan stanley always was and will always be a glorified sweatshop. No surprise they coerce their employees to RTO full time with threats of layoffs. They’ve always had annual cullings just before bonus time.

Do you really think people are going to trade the prestige and exit ops of a tier 1 BB on their resume for 2 days a week?

If I were a shareholder of Morgan Stanley I would be asking "since the years the workers were working from home were some of your most profitable, and work from home saves the company money, why are you spending my money on office space, and forcing people to come back?"

Yes, and importantly it will be the workers who are talented enough to fine other jobs easily.

Morgan Stanley should have gone out of business a long time ago. It still needs to be broken up—too big to fail, after all.

It’s really not that prestigious to have asshole company on your resume.

It’s so people can’t look for other jobs as easily—the five days in the office are job handcuffs as far as management is concerned—little do they know.

[deleted]

Their office space leases are usually negotiated for decades, so there is mostly likely no increase in spending there.

With the job market softening, that may not be the case going forward.

[deleted]

The job market isn't softening for finance

What if some of the talented people aren't workshy

I always like the “has money= smart and empathetic” thought. Idk if that’s a real occurrence.

I believe in good, but people don't listen to good. You have to explain to them why good is good for their greed. In this case it's obviously fucking better from a pure money perspective to let workers stay home. Many companies were trying to move more workers to remote in the pre-pandemic for that very reason.

The reality is that every CEO who is forcing services workers back to the office, who's company did well during the pandemic, is wasting money for their egos. Fuck them.

Then they can still work hard in a way that's better for them and costs them less money. Or just work for someone who's not going to put the screws to them for no reason.

​

If people working from home didn't work these companies wouldn't have done so well during the Pandemic. Part of the reason they can't really argue en masse to get workers back is because it's obviously a waste of time and money.

No that only means that a smaller percentage of the top of your company can walk. But your best can walk. Even in a down market a profitable professional is profitable. So you lost the top 1% of your workforce instead of top 3% of your workforce... you've still lost your best.

​

edit: This is also why I'm against corporate actions that push people to "self select" to layoff, your best go fastest, and you get stuck with the workers who don't have other options.

I hate when companies do that.

It's such a shit practice.

Electricity, bandwidth, building services, utilities etc... etc...

Additionally in a company the scale of Morgan Stanley there are (and will continue to be) new Office spaces opened and closed every single year. This means there are constant opportunities to save money for those same decade timescales.

In a smaller company that may be a factor, but it's still cheaper even if you're biting down on sunk cost, to have workers be remote.

Fully agree.

Maybe not every company wants to be fully remote just because it’s easier for you to be in your pajamas all day

It costs investor money to make people come in. If that's the only justification you are wasting money.

Theses costs are already factored in. Clearly they feel like the costs outweigh any downside, since they want their workers back in the office.

I feel like we were having the same discussion and people made the same point last year around this time. I guess Omicron messed up the plans last year.

In the big banks, some ppl are allowed to permanently wfh, if they are in very important position. For the ones that can be replaced, of course they have to come of the office..

I don't believe that's the reality. When people get more money they tend to start voting conservative for financial reasons. And are willing to ignore all other conservative policies as long as there's financial benefits. And we all know empathy is the enemy for the gop when it comes to policies.

With all the recent tech layoffs, the banks feel emboldened.

Yea, I wonder if In the long term a recession would bring people back to the office. Not advocating for it, but it seems like the thing keeping hybrid schedules is worker power atm

"these savings are found money so we plan to waste them" that's what I'm hearing.

edit: look, my point is that you should have to show it's better to be worth spending money on. I'm sure there are companies that could easily do just that. Most of the financial services industry seemingly could not if they had to.

I mean they already are.

I don’t know a single person who started in IB who didn’t want to get into PE after 2-3 years. It’s often argued as to why banking can be so toxic. There’s a hazing-esque element of “it sucked for me so it’s going to suck for you” + an opinion that a lot of those left were the ones passed over for buyside roles.

IMO private equity has become more comfortable with remote work than larger orgs, because COVID saw a lot of senior employees leave NYC (at least for a time).

Everything still worked and unlike banks, if they wanted to they could up and move the whole firm (or at least its HQ) somewhere else and wouldn’t require thousands of people moving.

Mayor Adams, with respect, working from home is still working, sir. How do you not understand this after two years?

This feels more like an ego thing than a cost thing.

As someone who worked on Wall Street, I can tell you that will not be the case for the vast majority of people who go to IB. It’s an absolutely brutal job, that you would never choose for work-life balance - you choose it for, 1) Pay, and 2) exit opps. The kind of people willing to take on that lifestyle generally aren’t going to turn down more prestigious banks offering better pay/exits just to work from home twice a week.

It’s also worth noting that because you work so much, most of your friends in the city end up being your co-workers - particularly important when you’re a more junior employee who may be single/doesn’t have a family. Work from home as a banker was fucking miserable, because you still work 15 hours a day, but also don’t have the chance to at least have SOME social interaction with friends during the week. RTO is not as big of a deal for a lot of people as it may seem…

“Lure” more like forced to work in the office.

I honestly do not get at this point, why this is such a hot button issue for people on either side.

Why would I care what you do at your job?

My heart goes out to these people. I've been working my first ever "office" job in my life and I now fully understand the push for remote work. There is absolutely 0 reason why I need to physically be there and I have no doubt that's the case for these people. Commuting is soul destroying and no one in power gives a shit.

Yes, actually. Younger generations tend to value their family, children and personal life a little more than the soulless Boomers did.

Lol why would a company keep expensive office space around during a recession when they could save tens of thousands a month without it lol

Nobody is even suggesting fully remote.

You want someone to explain to you what empathy is?

I go into the office 1 or 2 times a week, and they are my least productive days by far.

It's mostly meetings that could have been done remotely and bullshitting with coworkers I don't see very often.

My employer definitely gets less for their money for my work on those days.

Morgan Stanley has been profitable in past years because the brands adder market was up. You think that has something to do with remote work though?

My company is run by a bunch of old farts who: "cAn'T wOrK wItH pEoPlE tHaT dOn'T cOmE tO tHe OfFiCe." They have absolutely no interest in remote work and refuse to even try to see the value of it so everyone else has to suffer for their refusal to do so.

I'm already in a bad depressive episode right now and my excruciating long commute isn't helping as it is.

Have you ever met an investment banker? Serious question.

Yep. Pure disinformation / manipulation on that title.

Part of what makes that frustrating is that we all know they aren't being honest with their reasons. Most of us were fine working from home when it wasn't safe to come in, so that's BS.

It just feels like they have to justify managers and rent.

Most people that are given the choice about how often or even if they come in seem much happier doing so than people that are forced to come in. But these doofuses don't understand that.

That's definitely true. I also think it's the "corporate logic" that if you aren't physically watching your employees, they won't get any work done. This is hilarious to me because I've learned it is INSANELY easy to pretend like you're getting work done and they won't even notice.

Some companies have leases on their office space? Lol they can’t just up and break their lease, not realistic

>since the years the workers were working from home were some of your most profitable

Our staff was also getting sick during that period. That means getting sick is good for business. We should demand c-suite to get staff sick on a regular basis to keep those profits up.

As someone who’s worked on WS… and still does: the only people who care about “prestige” are the junior ones in their resume building phase. Oddly, big “prestigious” banks know that and actually sometimes pay LESS than their smaller counterparts. “ we are Goldman everybody wants to work for us anyway we don’t need to pay top dollar”. After 2-3-4 years whatever people care about the money and the lifestyle over a brand name. The cushiest opportunities are found in smaller shops in fact.

Not everyone is a 22 year old analyst.

I’m a director at a top bank…the recent graduates will likely grind it out for the exit ops regardless of schedule.

The 30-something mid-career person with kids, who has built childcare around a hybrid schedule…they will hop.

My bank is at 3 days in the office, I will leave if it’s 5 days. I’ll join a second tier bank if it means I don’t have to commute and not see my family five days a week.

This article isn’t even accurate anyways. VPs and directors absolutely are not showing up 5 days a week at Goldman, JPM, and MS anyways. It’s really just the analysts and associates, and even then, it’s really only four days a week.

A big part of that is because most of us can get our work done in less time than we're given to do it.

Our incentives change when working from home, so instead of just figuring out how to stretch out 40 hours of work--where there's very little reward for getting done early, now we're trying to get it done as quickly as possible so we can enjoy the rest of our time 🤷‍♂️

Not sure why you’re getting downvotes, you’re right

It's naive to correlate IB performance to WFH solely during a first-of-its-kind QE period.

I agree with you, but my point is that when it comes to recruiting that’s a lot more relevant to juniors, and significantly more people working on Wall Street are more junior employees (we can’t all make MD). In an industry where most people are only going to stay for a few years before moving on, the prestige is important. I’m not sure how much RTO will really impact people’s decisions long-term - the same people who want to kill themselves to make MD at a top bulge bracket or EB will probably continue to do so regardless, and a lot of the people who would prefer more wfh flexibility are the ones who would have looked to move to a smaller shop anyway.

I also wonder if the point about more prestigious banks paying less is slowly but surely starting to change (though current market conditions and the impact on big tech, etc may slow this down). It’s interesting you use Goldman as an example, given they just raised base salaries to move towards the top of the street, and paid out bonuses largely on par with even elite boutiques this year…

In my experience having lived in this city and known a lot of banking and finance people, it is easily one of the most toxic, destructive industries on the face of the earth. I mean I’ve literally been the fly on the wall on my SO’s zoom meetings where they talked about how to milk people with prescriptions for more money so, yeah. Not entirely shocked they’re calling the minions into mount doom every day for full time RTO.

Yes lol

Yes, and even they are spending more time with their kids. 3x as much by most accounts.

"workshy" is some top tier corpo bootlicking speak lmao

Gorman and Dimon are such dicks. Good luck guys.

This article brought to you by Morgan Stanley

No, I think remote work has been shown to not be harmful to profitability. Since it saves money and isn't harmful to profitability, forcing people back should be justified if management is going to spend money on it.

I go in 3 days a week and try to be home for bath time every day.

Yeah welcome to profit above all corporate crapitalism.

I don’t know that you have a vantage point to say that without confidence about Morgan Stanley. In my industry it’s been a major drag on productivity for the past year and a half because entry level employees are not ramping up as quickly as they used to pre-remote work, and it has knock on effects throughout organizations.

Sure, I mean it's not like as a publicly traded company they've released their financials on a quarterly basis showing continued profit growth throughout the time they've been primarily WFH... /S

💯

That is assuming private equity can maintain the same compensation and momentum it’s had since 08. The recent Blackstone news about Redemptions and the shift of these firms to private credit is not a good sign

The funny irony is hearing their executives complain about the turnover, especially amongst their traders. They end up paying more in recruitment, consulting, onboarding, hiring and training in the long run.

Morgan does this for s couple of reasons

1. they can threaten cuts before bonus time like another redditor said. 1b) it keeps the image of being a hard ass / elite company.

2a) by forcing people back in person it keep building usage a sensible economy decision . Those building in terms of real estate value add a lot.

2bish) due to remote work lots of people left new york city because who wants to pay those rents. People moving out means means less revenue both in the form of taxes at times if companies also change headquarters and especially in the flow of money. This affect money going to the defacto daycares : schools.

Things that will also be affected subways. So services like the subways will have to decide to either raise prices to break even with less people or reduce services ∴ cost. Either way this might push people out as well. Forming a descending spiral of quality. (Freakonomics had an episode on this at some point. )

This makes NYC less attractive overall which goes back to point 2a) reducing property value. No good for the bottom line which means not good for shareholder price which means not good for the fat bonuses the execs are trying to make. So .. we have this nonsense

>trade the prestige

lol if you are over 23 and care about "prestige" your life priorities got fucked up somewhere.

I agree and i actually do believe that juniors in NYC should be in the office. I am an MD and i know i couldn’t have made it by working from home. And why would you even freaking want to as a young person in NYC living in a tiny apartment? give me my desk and my ergonomic office chair over a couch and a coffee table in a studio apartment. Get out there, meet people, work hard, play harder, this is what your 20ies are for 😀

But it’s the seniors who are the rainmakers, it is my job to bring in business and I do not need to sit in the office for that and if a company is gonna try and make me, I am taking my clients and my team and I am leaving. Or I am leaving the industry - exit opportunities at senior levels are abundant and attractive, you can size them up to your desired lifestyle. So this is how it’s gonna be. Those with options will exercise them.

Edit: and GS funny enough just gave its traders bonus warning despite having a good year. This is what i am talking about. BB sucks for senior people

There's never been a better time to job hunt. I'm not in IB but I am in finance. When my employer wanted us all in 4 days a week I started looking. We all did. A cascade of resignations started. They switched to 3 days in office. It wasn't enough for us. My small team lost half the associates. Even the new hires who have been there for less than a year are now leaving for more pay and fully remote options.

I found a better job with a 50% pay bump that is now Fully Remote. My new office is in another state now. There will be no RTO for me one way or the other and I'm good with that.

[deleted]

yeah, you're "suffering" because you have to commute into an office. what a sick, twisted form of torture it must be to have to leave your home and travel somewhere to work!

Go take a look at their earnings reports and point out where they pin profitability on anything related to remote work. You can't be that dense that you equate short-term profitability driven primarily by market conditions and the long-term management of a business, right?

That's not how it works. they're proposing to spend more investor money, they need to show where it drives further profitability.

They don't directly tie profitability to WFH, I'm not either, I'm saying that the result show WFH has not damaged profitability.

[deleted]

Bro shut the fuck up. Unlike your privileged ass, some of us can't afford to live in Manhattan and we don't have the privilege of having commutes <1 hour. My commute takes 1.5 hours one way at best and on a REALLY bad day it can take me more than 2 hours and I don't exactly have much of a choice because the job market is trash where I live. It's even more infuriating that I'm wasting all this time for a job where I literally don't physically need to be there to get it done.

I have way more mental health issues than just this obviously, not that someone with as little empathy as you would care. However if you can't see why this would be exhausting and mentally draining then you must have your head so far up your own ass that you're choking on your morning breakfast. What was even the point of your dumbass comment? What point are you trying to make?

I started my career in an office for 7 years and wondered why I couldn’t really move up. Quit that, started working from home, boom, my skills seemed to get 10x better. Went from developer to senior developer and then to VP of Engineering in a few years. THAT is how much I improved by eliminating a bad work environment.

> Everyone else will operate at 3.

<.<

it's NY Post, what did you expect?

Former banking IT PM here. Banks are wage slave shops. Such hostile toxic environments. They squeeze, and squeeze until there's nothing left. Then they squeeze more.

So happy I'm out and into consumer services.

I'm sure this won't have any affect on their mental health or the environment or any of the other fuckin reasons why it's ultimately better to let people (who are able to) work from home do so as they please

Nice. I'm hoping I can make serious career progression. My goal is to job hop until I finally make enough that I seem satisfactory.

better for EVERYONE else's mental health i'm sure

My friend is in big law and their firm mandated 3 days a week return. Most people just don't come in still because it's not like they take attendance, and people often travel for work so it's not like it's unusual for them not to be in office even with the 3 day requirement.

I haven't even read the article yet and the word 'lures' just hits me wrong.

Why do they need to frame it like workers are prey who need to be manipulated? Jesus we're people too and just want to be treated like people.

And now that I've read the article it's even worst. Threatening to let people go if they don't come into the office isn't luring people in, that's blackmailing them.

Somewhat of a non-sequitur, but I stayed in FiDi last night after moving away last year - first visit back where it really did feel like pre-covid times. Lots of new restaurants, lots of people out and about and power suits everywhere. Felt really nice, even if it means shit like this is happening and now everyone has to commute again unnecessarily.

Hmm if the job market is trash where you live then sounds like you do need to travel to where the jobs are. people have been doing it for many decades. you want the nice NYC job but think you shouldn't have to leave your house for it?

I lived in Central NJ when I first started my career and had a 1.5 hour commute each way, 5x per week. It was a grind but I did it. eventually I moved to nyc. This wasn't a "privilege" granted to me but a choice I made and worked for. That word is so easy to throw around and make it sound like you're some kind of victim but in reality you're just whining.

Big IBs don't actually pay that well. They can get away with underpaying due to a line of people out the door consisting of fresh faced, 22 year olds eager to pad their resumes. It is the middle tier and niche banks on the sell side, plus the aforementioned buy side firms by other posters who are forced to go hybrid. Not b/c they want to but because they need to in order to attract and retain talent.

Big swinging dick in the sub!

Lol, this is totally true.

Let's not forget, a lot of the big banks OWN tons of office buildings outright. It's not in their best interest to not encourage a return to work.

My wife worked for them. She finally found a job so she doesn’t have to go in 5 days a week

Hurray, sexual harassment culture is back on!

Did you walk uphill both ways to school as well?

Dimon should be in prison.

So serious career progression is an increase in salary?

Would you take a pay cut for a better title, at a smaller company?

Eh, I stuck around in banking (for now). WLB in PE isn’t all it’s made out to be

Different animal, same beast

What about the Patagonia vests and colorful socks that show with slim, tapered slacks?

I live on Staten Island for the record.

Look I've read your comments on this post and it sounds to me like you have an extremely negative bias and skewed viewpoint on remote work. People aren't being lazy or sitting around in their pajamas all day. They simply don't see the purpose of having to waste time going to an office when there is literally no reason why they need to physically be there. People want to save as much time out of their day as possible and commuting eats up a lot of people's day.

Your question: "You want the nice NYC job, but you think you shouldn't have to leave your house for it?" is coming from an outdated belief and viewpoint on the working world and is just simply wrong. What I'm trying to say is that if a company wants me to physically be there to do the job, then there needs to be adequate justification as to why that is. If I'm working as a chef then yes, by all means I need to physically be in the kitchen making food. That's justified and makes sense. Currently, I'm working a job where everything I do is online and 98% of my communications are done via email/Microsoft Teams. There is literally no reason why I need to physically be there and my boss has no justifiable reason other than "It's what I want."

I am working hard to move closer to the city because it is what I want. The whole reason I took this job in the first place was to put me on a better career path that would eventually lead to a higher salary down the line. You need to stop looking at all this as people being "victims" or "whiney" and start asking yourself "Why is it this way to begin with?" You said you've essentially been in my position before with the long commute, but your argument that "I went through it so other people should too.", is flimsy as hell. That's like someone who's mentally ill and lived in the 70s saying: "I couldn't get proper mental health treatment when I was younger so other people shouldn't either."

All people want is a better quality of life and we should be as a society heading in a progressive direction that improves that quality for everyone involved. Many people feel remote work is a major quality of life enhancer. Have you honest to God never stopped and questioned why society is the way it is? The 1% have manipulated the way we live and think so heavily and not for our best interests. They want us to be poor. They want us to be miserable. They don't care about us and we should be pushing back on their bullshit.

That would depend very heavily on a variety of factors, although I don't make as much as you may think I do. Do you have something in mind you wanted to ask me? Would you like to DM if so?

Lures lol you mean "forced"

"the threat of layoffs proved to be an effective incentive"

I wouldn't call that luring, Bob

Fucking factsssssss. This dude is literally the embodiment of "Boomer mentality".

For who ever is left working there. Find another job and make em sweat. This is a democracy not a dictatorship!

Employers care about prestige, hence the exit ops

I mean hasn't that always been the way of the finance world? IB -> MBA -> maybe back to IB for a few years or straight to PE/VC

Lol good luck!

Anyone who is that far in an IB career isn’t doing or is worried about childcare.

I have a friend (consulting) whose company recently mandated 3 days a week in office, but they placed her on a project in a different city that she commutes to at least once per week. They then had the audacity to send her an attendance warning because she wasn’t in the New York office 3x per week.

Believe it or not, childcare isn’t just the practice of finding someone to watch your kid.

Some parents actually want to like, physically be around their kids. Weird concept I know.

Those parents are unlikely to choose investment banking as a career then

Just in time for the next wave! https://www.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page

My point is more that investment bankers/people in PE will almost assuredly be able to find new jobs. I agree tho that putting on crappy return to the office policies basically just pushes out the highest performing people who can get another job fastest.

So generous to let them work from home on Saturdays.

ahh, hard agree.

Nah

Sweatshop that pays 300k out of college. I’ll sweat for that.

Yea I think that's a pretty normal trajectory but I also see a lot of IB -> Pre-MBA PE Associate -> MBA -> PE Sn. Associate / VP. I feel like banks are moving away from MBAs as a prerequisite as recruiting is getting harder.

Morgan Stanley employees are very well paid.

I can see why employees would want to return to work even if they didn't want to.

Go work at Bloomberg. Make more than that, for half the amount of hours you’d be working at MS.

Upvote for the word "crapitalism"

i design physical product and i still only go in twice a week.. literally zero reason to do this if work in finance other than to make your egomaniac boss feel better about themself :/

Can’t they just hire some low-income poors or illegal immigrants to watch their spawn?

First years are paid well but not that much

Some do. A few years ago I was doing gig-work at a food court in some bougie day care in Tribeca. During the week it was the kids and their Latina/Filipina nannies. On the weekend, when it was time for the parents to spend some "quality time" with their kids, it was more like moms drinking wine and chatting with each other and the dads drinking IPA's while watching football on their phones while their kids they've barely seen all week were climbing the walls for attention. I'm convinced that to rich people kids are just expensive pets.

It is worse

First year analysts make like 80k

My point is the issue has stayed politicized long after Covid. I don't get why people care on either side of the aisle at this point. Not to mention this is a first world problem that doesn't affect a lot of lower middle class workers.

Salaries have risen. Analysts are now at the $100-125k base range, $150-250k with bonus.

My cousin worked at Morgan Stanley. His 4 person team all quit

Yep. People are giving minimal effort now (some teams) include EDs

The head of morgan Stanley continues to work hybrid. One time there was a town hall abfew years back and he was almost 2 hours late and said he overslept!

It’s about time

People who make money from money, don’t really contribute to society.

[deleted]

I didn’t ask and don’t care what you think

That’s cool, for a finance bro you sure don’t understand how public forums work, just know there are people who think what you do is disgusting selfish and entitled, cause it is

Just ignore him. Part of the brigade that polices this sub.

What? That doesn’t fall under the remit of any finance person though? Lol

“Workers and laborers built this country…” okay but who financed it? Envy is gross

Government's plan to shitcan the economy to give bosses more power is going to plan I see.