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Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

nytimes.com

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Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#161

Post by refurb »

airstrike wrote: post #151
jxidjhdhdhdhfhf wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what if you turn that around? If you are currently remote but considering an offer from a place that's in-office, wouldn't you want a higher wage to compensate you for the extra hassle of commuting? That's extra free time you're never getting back.

Should I get a higher wage for living in a more expensive area in the city? My wage is related to the work I do. How I choose to spend my money is a personal decision.

Your wage is related to how much other people are willing to get paid to do the same job.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#162

Post by helsinki »

snicker7 wrote: post #106

I work at a hedge fund. Despite a recent return-to-work mandate, literally no one in my team is in the office. Our job is super stressful and emotionally taxing. Not having wearing to pants makes it somewhat bearable.

Same, except my team is in the office again.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#163

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

jollybean wrote: post #53
dymk wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked for years with overseas contractors, I’m really not too concerned about my job security

So being a 'contractor' and 'not connected' is a problem. But once they have the PM, designers, architect and devs. 'on staff' and all 'over there' - then you are the 'not connected' contractor. Moreover 'they' are getting better across the board. Japan made crap until they made the best cars in the world. China made crap but now they have the top 5G gear and all of the patents, and would wipe out a big chunk of West…

> Remote Work' is like an 'unlimited, free H1B' program.

As someone who manages people in many different countries from the US I can definitively say this is not true. You have to comply with local labor laws wherever you hire your employees. For example, many countries like Poland, England, and France require very longer notice periods and changes in job responsibilities can be a sticky legal issue. HR has to be equipped to handle all of these nuances.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#164

Post by d0gsg0w00f »

lekanwang wrote: post #44

I'm finding with the teams I'm working with that the junior employees are the ones most impacted by not working from an office, but they often don't realize what they're missing -- the less formal forms of mentorship, stronger community, interacting with more people that's not on their team and in their role, overhearing context, the ability to have a 3-min quick chat with a senior person without a scheduled meeting,…

IMO, This is the biggest problem with WFH. I personally have avoided all internship/development programs since COVID started at my company because I know it will just make my life harder and be frustrating on both sides.

We're already starting to feel the effects of the reduced talent pipeline especially as we get deeper into the Great Resignation.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#165

Post by jefftk »

snicker7 wrote: post #111
mabbo wrote: post #5

Like all industries that can move to remote, I suspect we will soon see a split. Some companies will embrace it, some won't. And that's not to detract from either side of that choice. It's just a choice that has to be made. What's going to be more interesting is what this does to the market rate for labor compensation between these two pools. Simply put: if you want me to be in the city from 9-6 every day, while your…

At a certain income threshold, rent becomes irrelevant. The difference in top decile salaries between, say, NYC and Pittsburgh is far more significant than the slight difference in a rent.

That doesn't sound right if you're talking about multiple people (ex: family with two kids and you want a room for each).

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#166

Post by lvl100 »

snicker7 wrote: post #106

I work at a hedge fund. Despite a recent return-to-work mandate, literally no one in my team is in the office. Our job is super stressful and emotionally taxing. Not having wearing to pants makes it somewhat bearable.

Your job is “super stressful and emotionally taxing?” Why do Wall Streeters always grossly overestimate their jobs? Managing money is really not that hard especially in the past 10 years. Even monkeys can do it.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#167

Post by thwarted »

mabbo wrote: post #5

Like all industries that can move to remote, I suspect we will soon see a split. Some companies will embrace it, some won't. And that's not to detract from either side of that choice. It's just a choice that has to be made. What's going to be more interesting is what this does to the market rate for labor compensation between these two pools. Simply put: if you want me to be in the city from 9-6 every day, while your…

I think the angle that's not fully communicated here is that the default expectation is 40 hours of work a week at 8 hours per day. At a company that expects you to be in the office for those 8 hours, many people actually spend more than 8 hours in service of the need to be in the office for 8 hours. That is, if it takes you 30 minutes of travel each way to satisfy a mandate to be in an office for 8 hours, you're really spending 9 hours "on company time", but you're only being compensated for 8. People who don't have, because of whatever reason, travel time can roll out of bed and immediately be ready to work (I have the past 18 months). Why should the employee take a hit out of their non-work time to do travel that the company insists on? If you want me to travel, pay me for it and recognize that you're paying for my time to not be productive because its being eaten up with travel (or recognize that some of the 8 hours of company-time is going to be eaten up with travel so you're only getting 7 hours of work time out of it). Someone could choose to move closer to the office, there by reducing the amount of time used for travel, and the unproductive-travel-time compensation should be reduced.

Historically, both employers and employees have incongruent and hazy understanding and a polite agreement as to how this kind of time gets accounted for (how much it is and who is accountable/responsible for it), especially in salaried positions/knowledge workers. That's probably going to change. If anything, the work-from-wherever trend will help people get a better understanding of and draw the line between work-time and personal-time, productive time and non-productive time, total compensation, and what, exactly, they are being compensated for, and how this time is grokked and tracked.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#168

Post by rmah »

activitypea wrote: post #108
lekanwang wrote: post #44

I'm finding with the teams I'm working with that the junior employees are the ones most impacted by not working from an office, but they often don't realize what they're missing -- the less formal forms of mentorship, stronger community, interacting with more people that's not on their team and in their role, overhearing context, the ability to have a 3-min quick chat with a senior person without a scheduled meeting,…

Any ideas how we could fix this?

It can't be fixed industry wide. I guess it could be partially fixed at individual companies. But those are just band aids. It's just how it is. If you're not face to face, the relationships will be at arms length.

In addition to the mentorship issue, think about promotions. Especially to more senior levels. The people in the office or with pre-existing relationships will be the ones getting promoted and will be the power brokers. If you are someone who doesn't think that will be true, then (IMO) you are confusing how you wish the world to be for how the world is.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#169

Post by sokoloff »

thwarted wrote: post #167
mabbo wrote: post #5

Like all industries that can move to remote, I suspect we will soon see a split. Some companies will embrace it, some won't. And that's not to detract from either side of that choice. It's just a choice that has to be made. What's going to be more interesting is what this does to the market rate for labor compensation between these two pools. Simply put: if you want me to be in the city from 9-6 every day, while your…

I think the angle that's not fully communicated here is that the default expectation is 40 hours of work a week at 8 hours per day. At a company that expects you to be in the office for those 8 hours, many people actually spend more than 8 hours in service of the need to be in the office for 8 hours . That is, if it takes you 30 minutes of travel each way to satisfy a mandate to be in an office for 8 hours, you're re…

In that model, why wouldn’t the company insist that you move closer to work to minimize the commuting payment? You picked where you live and what company you applied to work at; they didn’t pick where you live.

If that means that you want to only apply for remote positions, that’s certainly your choice; I don’t blame you in the least for it, but expecting a company to pay you as a result of where you chose to live seems unlikely to happen, to put it mildly.

Re: Wall Street grudgingly allows remote work as bankers dig in

#170

Post by sokoloff »

actually_a_dog wrote: post #139
isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you don't have a commute and can do stuff at home during work.

So? That doesn't net me money during salary negotiation.

If it means that some actually-a-dog2 realizes that they prefer it enough to work for 5% less, then you need to compete with that.
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