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Goldman Sachs: Bank boss rejects work from home as the 'new normal'

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Goldman Sachs: Bank boss rejects work from home as the 'new normal'

#21

Post by braveyellowtoad »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #7
Paulster0031 wrote: post #6

I guess he wants the new recruits to be able to experience the "magic roundabout" The investment banking culture is notoriously brutal. Analysts typically work until midnight every day. Deals are unpredictable, deadlines are short and clients are demanding. There is a ritual known in banking circles as the “magic roundabout” — a graduate leaves his or her desk in the early hours of the morning, takes a cab home, and…

Baffles me that anyone would want to live like this. The sooner this bizarre culture dies out, the better.

It won’t die out. People like money. Analyst IBD roles represent not only some of the best compensated roles out of Uni, but puts on a path to a long well-compensated career either at GS or another bank. Or an exit opportunity. And the young folks that go into these roles probably busted their butts at Uni after busting their butts at high school. They are ready for it. And once you get in the culture you get normalised to it.

Re: Goldman Sachs: Bank boss rejects work from home as the 'new normal'

#22

Post by mvc »

alibarber wrote: post #5

Whilst all this work from home is nice and lovely and whatever, for me I still struggle to overlook this cynical fact: I had a space dedicated to work in that my employer paid for. Now I must make a part of my house that space and foot the bill.

Why wouldn't they pay (at least up to) the same amount of money to you so that you can create your own space?

Re: Goldman Sachs: Bank boss rejects work from home as the 'new normal'

#23

Post by Agingcoder »

bottled_poe wrote: post #10
llampx wrote: post #2

I'm of two minds. I don't think most office work can be done from home all the time, but I think a lot of it can be done efficiently from home. On the other hand I also value the social aspect as well as the easy onboarding in-person. For GS, if their competitors are offering better working conditions, their top employees may switch over, leaving them with the ones who don't have a choice. Maybe he would better under…

I doubt that WFH options are a significant factor for the best employees. There are so many other incentives/rewards/perks that imo should rank above this. Eg. Remuneration, opportunities, connection to colleagues (particularly those involved in promotional decisions). > if your competitor is offering it you might want to do it as well. That factor only seems relevant in isolation. Financial remuneration is surely th…

Well, if I can 'pay' the employee a lot more just by letting live somewhere cheaper where he'll happy ( say, somewhere with a house, garden, and peace and quiet, an unaffordable luxury to most in large European cities such as London/Paris ), then wfh and compensation suddenly become linked.

Furthermore, by allowing full WFH, you also expand your recruitment pool to people outside your immediate geographical area.

That being said, I miss the office quite badly : real, physical interactions, can't be replaced with video conferences.

Re: Goldman Sachs: Bank boss rejects work from home as the 'new normal'

#24

Post by voisin »

pram wrote: post #12
alibarber wrote: post #5

Whilst all this work from home is nice and lovely and whatever, for me I still struggle to overlook this cynical fact: I had a space dedicated to work in that my employer paid for. Now I must make a part of my house that space and foot the bill.

On the other hand my home workspace is an actual office, and not some nightmarish open space where my desk was 7th in a row of 8. So the space dedicated to work in that my employer paid for actually sucks and they can have it back.

This! It seems to me the primary “productivity gains” are only due to the hell of open office designs and that these gains would not exist if offices were laid out in a more humane way with cubicles or offices for people to work in. So everyone got excited to lose all the benefits of working in an office (in-person communication versus Zoom!) only because of fictional productivity gains. What we really need is the pendulum to swing back to offices closer to 2000 versus this travesty we found in the late 201x’s.

Re: Goldman Sachs: Bank boss rejects work from home as the 'new normal'

#25

Post by anothernewdude »

bottled_poe wrote: post #10
llampx wrote: post #2

I'm of two minds. I don't think most office work can be done from home all the time, but I think a lot of it can be done efficiently from home. On the other hand I also value the social aspect as well as the easy onboarding in-person. For GS, if their competitors are offering better working conditions, their top employees may switch over, leaving them with the ones who don't have a choice. Maybe he would better under…

I doubt that WFH options are a significant factor for the best employees. There are so many other incentives/rewards/perks that imo should rank above this. Eg. Remuneration, opportunities, connection to colleagues (particularly those involved in promotional decisions). > if your competitor is offering it you might want to do it as well. That factor only seems relevant in isolation. Financial remuneration is surely th…

WFH is remuneration - being able to move to a cheaper area can offer an effective 2x or 3x pay increase.

Re: Goldman Sachs: Bank boss rejects work from home as the 'new normal'

#26

Post by yitchelle »

pram wrote: post #12
alibarber wrote: post #5

Whilst all this work from home is nice and lovely and whatever, for me I still struggle to overlook this cynical fact: I had a space dedicated to work in that my employer paid for. Now I must make a part of my house that space and foot the bill.

On the other hand my home workspace is an actual office, and not some nightmarish open space where my desk was 7th in a row of 8. So the space dedicated to work in that my employer paid for actually sucks and they can have it back.

Congrats on your setup. I am struggling to get a similar workspace myself, but I constraint by money, space and family situations.

Re: Goldman Sachs: Bank boss rejects work from home as the 'new normal'

#27

Post by JumpCrisscross »

llampx wrote: post #2

I'm of two minds. I don't think most office work can be done from home all the time, but I think a lot of it can be done efficiently from home. On the other hand I also value the social aspect as well as the easy onboarding in-person. For GS, if their competitors are offering better working conditions, their top employees may switch over, leaving them with the ones who don't have a choice. Maybe he would better under…

> if their competitors are offering better working conditions, their top employees may switch over

Speaking anecdotally as someone who's been away from high finance for a few years. The drift is towards firms who let their employees work together. I don't know of many high performers, or ambitious up and comers, who want to stay isolated at home.

Re: Goldman Sachs: Bank boss rejects work from home as the 'new normal'

#28

Post by andrejserafim »

Disclaimer: used to work at GS. Left to work remotely in another region.

GS is a big company. There's lots of people there. Some 8k people are in the tech division. And the employer competition there is not just with other financial firms. But also with the rest of the tech sector.

So as other commenters say, if other places offer similar conditions, but also remote work. It may be a differentiator. In practise though - working from home for tech some days a week has been totally normal for years. So I expect little actual impact on the company.

Re: Goldman Sachs: Bank boss rejects work from home as the 'new normal'

#29

Post by anothernewdude »

alibarber wrote: post #5

Whilst all this work from home is nice and lovely and whatever, for me I still struggle to overlook this cynical fact: I had a space dedicated to work in that my employer paid for. Now I must make a part of my house that space and foot the bill.

Don't forget to claim tax on the portion of your house that is being used for work.

Re: Goldman Sachs: Bank boss rejects work from home as the 'new normal'

#30

Post by jmeister »

christmm wrote: post #4

who would have guessed that a Goldman Sachs Boss, would have showed this level of common sense in these troubling times

Banks get BS-tested in the market every microsecond. They need to have extraordinary levels of common-sense by necessity.
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