JPM Pencils Down Policy
Happy Friday All,
I will be matriculating this fall at an M7 or Top 10 MBA program and will be looking to move from Consulting to I banking. The protected weekends and work-life balance policies aren't a complete decision maker for me, but as this will be a long term career move, I'm interested in them.
Has anyone experienced JPM's Pencils Down policy? It's advertised on their application page, but I can't find much else on their site. I love the firm, have served them as a client in consulting, and would very much like to learn more about the policy. Feel free to respond however you want, but items I was curious about are below.
- What all does it entail (vacation utilization, weekend work, etc)?
- Is it enforced?
- How has it impacted morale?
Lol. Don't be naive. If you work in "high" finance - especially on the sell-side, there is no protected anything. No matter what some website says.
This was pretty unhelpful. Do you have personal knowledge of the policy or was this just hubris and speculation?
Wtf..... either I'm way too drunk or I've been hella glitched
I know in London, at least since summer 2017, it is quite uniformly enforced that employees are to be out of the office by 7pm on Fridays in IBD. Of the 5 or 6 people I knew at the time, they only stayed past 7pm on Friday every 3 months or so.
However, sometimes these policies aren't actually overly helpful. If you have a deadline for Monday, I'm sure you would rather stay later on Friday night and get it done instead of your MD shipping you out to make themselves feel better about their team culture...
Could always do the work over the weekend instead of busting a gut on the Friday night?
Exactly, you could. You could also have plans over the weekend and want to get the work done as soon as possible. I just know of instances where analysts had to grit their teeth and smile as they were told to get out at 7pm to enjoy their "work-life balance", only to go straight home and continue work from their own laptop.
renzel you're right about the request to the team's MD, hence it rarely gets done as VP's/directors have to report how often each one of them has asked a junior to stay late.
A buddy of mine works at JPM and I believe the policy is no one can work past 7PM (may be wrong, but around then) on Fridays. If they need to get work done, they have to submit a request to a MD or the staffer for approval. Depending on what group you're in, every month you can have an protected weekend too. Could be every other month - I don't remember the exact specifics. With regards to how well its enforced - 7PM policy is, protected weekends would probably be more easily "enforced" since you'll be an associate. They did the 7PM policy to try and retain people from jumping to PE, so overall employees have liked it.
The policies have been pretty effective from what I can tell. There are actually 3 parts it:
Pencils Down. No matter how terrible your Mon to Thurs is, you're always off from 7pm Friday to Noon on Saturday. The biggest thing this does is that you can make plans every single week that you know for a fact you won't have to cancel, which is huge in banking. This one is 100% part of the culture and definitely socially enforced (i.e. everyone is gone around 7pm, no seamless guys in the lobby). I don't think people get kicked out if they want to finish up what they're working on, but maybe that does happen.
No weekend marketing work. It's supposed to be the case that no MD, etc can ask you to come in over the weekend unless you're working on a live deal. This is a close second because coming in on the weekend to work on a pitch is just asinine. I'm not sure to what extent senior bankers abide by this, but it seems like it has pretty well penetrated into the culture.
Protected weekends. From my understanding, it's very possible to take a protected weekend every month (may be group-dependent). Though it's not like you're unplugging for 48 hours and I'm pretty sure people still work sometimes (esp. if on live deals), but if you want to go chill in Cape Cod or go to a wedding in SF or go skiing in Vermont or something, you can. The reason it's ranked lowest is that a) it requires coordination ahead of time with your deal teams, which I think translates to fewer people taking advantage of it, and b) like I said before, you may not have to work at all, but you certainly won't be unplugged. Much like pencils down, the key here is that you can actually make plans ahead of time that you won't be at risk of canceling (some exceptions, I'm sure).
Ah didn't know about the ban on weekend marketing work, that's a good idea. SB'ed
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