Among others moving quickly, JPMorgan Chase & Co. has already begun refilling its skyscraper on Madison Avenue while its headquarters on Park Avenue is under construction. The nation’s largest bank has told all US employees to prepare to return early next month, but the tower will still be capped at 50 per cent occupancy.
Wall Street is returning to the office at different speeds, creating anxiety at workplaces.Credit:Bloomberg
Elsewhere in Midtown, senior managers at Bank of America have started making their way into the office. The firm isn’t expecting a broader return of staff until the fall.
“We’re concentrating on the vaccinated,” Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said today in an interview on CNBC. “But we’ve got to make sure the unvaccinated can come back in a mode that’s constructive.”
The bank recently started asking employees to disclose their status and now has tens of thousands in the US who have received the shots. Those employees are being invited back and being given 30 days notice to return. Across the industry, many are eager to come back. Moynihan said he was at a wedding over the weekend and spoke with a “bunch of young kids” who work for competitors. “They’re tired of working out of their rooms.”
Morgan Stanley’s return-to-office policy remains flexible, at least until Labor Day in September, CEO James Gorman said Monday at a virtual conference held by the bank. If people aren’t back in the office by then, Gorman would be “disappointed,” he said.
Deutsche Bank, also offering leeway, has told investment bankers in New York to plan on operating from offices no later than after Labor Day. Credit Suisse Group has told fully vaccinated employees in New York that they can begin returning on Monday as well, though all staff won’t resume full-time, in-office work until September.
“People will, by and large, return to the office,” said Alex Howard-Keyes, a vice president at the recruiting firm Kingsley Gate Partners who focuses on the financial services industry. “If you’re a big risk taker there will be pressure to get you back in the office full time. If you’re more client facing I suspect there will be a degree of latitude.”
This same divide is expected to soon play out in other industries and cities across the US as companies from technology giants like Facebook to carmakers like General Motors have all promised workers more remote work in the future.
In New York City, where about 46 per cent of residents were fully vaccinated as of Friday, the economy’s fate rests on Wall Street. The state has long estimated that 1-in-10 of the city’s jobs are directly or indirectly tied to the securities industry, which also accounts for one-fifth of private sector wages in New York.
Further behind the scenes, banks and their technology partners are crafting more fundamental long-term changes for how the industry will operate. They’re drawing on lessons executives learned when businesses across Manhattan suddenly had to work remotely. It turned out to be surprisingly doable.
Now, even banks eager to restock Manhattan towers are working on plans for shifting more of those jobs to other cities– a concept getting dubbed the “distributed trading floor.”
Morgan Stanley’s return-to-office policy remains flexible, but chief James Gorman says he will be “disappointed” if most staff are not back by Labor Day in September.Credit:Bloomberg
Businesses that once had to be run from New York will increasingly be handled from states with lower costs of living such as Texas, North Carolina and Florida. A lot of tech talent prefers to live in those places anyway, said Likhit Wagle, general manager of global banking and financial markets at IBM.
“A successful trader now needs to be somebody who’s very adept at taking advantage of artificial intelligence and machine learning,” Wagle said. “Those types of individuals are not available in London, New York or Frankfurt. They have strong views on work lifestyle balance, and a lot of them have indicated they’re not willing to move.”
For now, bankers are returning to offices that look vastly different from what they left behind March 2020.
Loading
Tall plastic barriers slice between desks while certain chairs in conference rooms have been blocked off to encourage social distancing. Common, too, are sanitiser stations. Masks may not be required for employees who are fully vaccinated, but daily health checks often will be.
Good indoor air quality is now among the most sought-after amenities for corporations hunting office space, said Julie Whelan, global head of occupier research at real estate services firm CBRE. She jokes that many clients have become amateur HVAC specialists, focusing more on ventilation systems than fitness facilities and access to public transportation.
“The things that used to drive building adoption — these are all at the bottom of the list,” Whelan said.