Calls increasing for staff to return to office

With life gradually getting back towards normal and people having begun to follow their usual daily routine, following the pandemic, staff are being encouraged to return to offices after working from home had practically become the norm.

Banks, in particular, are keen for staff to be back despite the preference of many members of staff to continue working from home. Investment bank, Jefferies has called on its senior bankers to return to the office to help mentor those in the junior ranks after a prolonged period of working from home.

The investment bank has asked its senior bankers to return “enthusiastically and with purpose” in a bid to help its “abandoned” juniors learn the ropes. It is also encouraging “critical mass days” within its offices, as part of its efforts to improve mental health among its employees.

“Many of our mid-level and junior colleagues are justifiably feeling abandoned,” a letter from chief executive Rich Handler and president Brian Friedman said. “They need to be in your physical presence and be exposed directly to your experience, perspective and humanity. They need to learn the nuances of what makes every senior person successful, and they need to be able to emulate positive role models.”

Jefferies has so far avoided imposing top-down company-wide edicts to unwind remote-working arrangements, though some of its rivals have largely had dealmakers working form the office full-time for months now, according to people familiar with the matter. However, the letter has called on its senior dealmakers to make “some sacrifice” by returning to the office more regularly.

“They need to spend time at lunches and dinners with you and your clients. They need to be in person when pitches happen,” the letter said.” They need to see a big trade or deal get executed in a truly collaborative manner on the trading floor. They need to be told real-time when they make a mistake and how to anticipate and correct it. Basically, they need every single thing that you and the two of us needed when we were in their shoes.

“Now we need you not only to return to the office but do so enthusiastically and with purpose to give back to those who have worked so hard to support you these past few years. They need this from you, and we cannot do it without all of you.”

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said last month that getting staff back to the office could take years, as in person attendance at the bank’s premises remains between 15pc and 60pc. In an interview with CNBC, the boss of the US investment bank said his campaign to get more employees to work from the office is still a work in progress.

Attendance has been uneven across different regions. Attendance is higher in European offices than in the US, Solomon said, while 100pc attendance has been reported at Goldman’s offices in Asia.

“We want people to generally come together,” Solomon said. “It’s going to take some time; behaviour shifts take time generally, and I think over the course of the next couple of years, our organisation will generally come together. Solomon said his campaign to get staff to return to the office was “never a binary” as recent media reports suggested. “It’s been portrayed sometimes as much more dogmatic than it is.”

JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon has also repeatedly called for staff to be present in the office. He has challenged employees over their wide insistence on working from home, saying they would suffer the consequences of not learning well enough. In April, however, the bank said that just 50pc of JPMorgan’s employees would work in the office full-time.