Let us WFH
I don’t give a fuck about “mentorship” or “learning through osmosis”. I am here to do my two years of banking and GTFO. Please call me short sighted and “not career oriented” all you want - I am both those things lmao. I intend to spend as little time working in corporate America as possible.
Another day commuting 45 minutes drenched in sweat to find that my MD and directors decided to not come in today lol. For the love of god just let us wfh. Banking is not that serious.
i personally couldn't disagree with this perspective but i absolutely admire the self-awareness and commitment to your intentions. truly. work the job, don't let the job work you
Seems like people have really come around to this idea in the past two years. The workplace seems truly different now.
The Great Resignation
I don't believe in conspiracy theories, but I am starting believe office real estate investors are trying to do everything they can to get people back in the office. I honestly have not met anyone who wants to be in the office 5 days a week, hybrid sure, but full time no. Yet here banks are, back in the office. Also, Manhattan office occupancy is absolutely dismal still lmao, like 30-40% if I remember correctly? Get fucked real estate nerds.
You make a good point tbh. There is a whole ecosystem of businesses that relies on businesses being in the office. From office supplies to furniture to maintenance/security to food places/caterers. Even Shake Shack had shitty earnings and blamed it on the slow transition back to the office. City governments are incentivized to push people to go back to the office as well because it stimulates local economies in terms of aggregate demand. All of these stakeholders could be conspiring in some form to make us return to the office because their companies or tax budgets rely on it.
I think we’re in a pretty interesting spot right now though, where workers in quite a few industries have most of the leverage. Outside of finance, many companies have implemented full flexible policies which, like you said, are probably bad for the local economy but align with what people actually want. It will be interesting to see if this trend continue and if there is any spillover to banking. Banking has always had a super antiquated way of doing things, so I don’t have high hopes, but if they want any chance of retaining/attracting talent they probably don’t have a choice.
If I was a CRE investor, I would be trying to figure our how to convert as much of my building to residential/multifamily apartments as possible.
I don’t know much about real estate, but how could this NOT be a great solution for a place like Manhattan? Office occupancy is at an all time low, yet there is a clear housing shortage. You could solve both problems so easily. Genuinely curious, what is the hold up here? Zoning?
Makes so much sense honestly. It seems like a no brainer considering residential demand in Manhattan is at a record high while office demand is at a record low looool. Yet, here we are, overpaying on rent and still going into the office. As the guy up too mentioned, so much political force and interest in keeping local economies reliant on office work afloat. What’s dead will die. The people do not want this.
CRE to residential is hard to do for the reasons mentioned previously.
I'm actually working on another solution. Converting CRE into mobile vertical farms so they can be used to grow food for the local market when not leased out. Then you can move the farm to a different unleased floor within the same building if your floor finds a renter. We manufacture a lightweight soil so it costs 1/20th of what hydroponics costs to retrofit the floor, yet it allows you to stack the farm pretty high without exceeding the floor's bearing capacity like you would with regular soil. Our pilot tests have shown that this is highly profitable up to a price of $60/sq. ft. rent, though we would be paying *much* less than that because we can shove these farms in undesirable floors with bad views, shit lighting, basement-level, etc. Also, big cost savings on the product due to a short travel distance to stores, and fresher produce.
Another cool thing about this strategy is that we're saving the building money on cooling, air filtration and humidification. The plants like CO2-rich air that your banker lungs produce. You like oxygen-rich air that the plants make. The HVAC system fills the growing floor with CO2-rich air after you and your friends are done with your 14-hour shift at the desk, and pumps the oxygenated, cooler air into your office once the workday starts again.
this isn't a conspiracy theory - it's a fact. what makes it worse is that companies like Vornado / SLG / Boston Properties (big office owners in major markets) are clients of all the REGAL groups on wall street. so i'm sure there are some behind the scenes / not so behind the scenes discussions amongst these boomer geezers to push RTO. Basically saying something along the lines of: if you don't mandate RTO for your employees, then forget being on our next bond issuance/ATM issuance/etc.
This isn't a conspiracy theory. This is very well public. Office real estate investors, commercial real estate brokers and local governments have been pushing back to office for a while
It’s not even a conspiracy, it’s pretty much a “I believe” button + showing your investors you’re in the office to prove your dedication.
It’s combination of that, the government crying about tax revenue, and local businesses complaining about not getting revenue from people going to eat and shopping in the area.
It isn’t really a conspiracy theory though. Eric Adams pretty much said this in NYC as one of the reasons they were calling people back to work and dropping vaccine mandates for shoppers.
Money is more important than their facade of making people feel safe.
Imagine Wall Street bankers going on strike for the right to wfh
The irony in that would be insane lmao
.
The best is the propaganda pieces the REIT CEOs are putting out in Canada. I don’t know a single person who wants to spend most of their life in the office, but if you ask these guys it’s like corporations are maliciously keeping the masses away from the utopia of their desk
I hear you- I go to my fancy ass midtown office - couple of times a week and I swear it's a ghost town. And I'm working in one of the premier locations where I sit that and can't even imagine the rent for the place.
It's not even a conspiracy theory it's most likely definitely true.
I don’t think it’s a conspiracy. The leases are locked in. Now the banks have to justify them so they want people coming in. With vacancies so high, landlords aren’t going to let them out.
Absolutely. If (a) the work is getting done and as you said, (b) the person doesn't care about mentorship and all that or having a long term banking career, let it be at the person's discretion.
I can 100% say the only reason my firm is fully back is because C-suite believes "people are just playing video games on their couch".
Even if they are... who cares? Back in my IB days I used to have at least 2+ hours of downtown during the day, and sometimes most of the day. If anything the mental recharge from being able to relax for half an hour watching TV or something will lead to more productive hours during the rest of the day.
Yeah but seniors suffered in the office so now we do too :)
^this 100%, the evaluation of your work should be binary - did you accomplish what was asked or did you not? if you did everything and you have some extra time to do personal chores / play video games / sleep, power to you. if you didn't do your work, different story obviously. but if you accomplished everything that was asked of you, why shouldn't you get that extra time to yourself?
I mean, sure I might play a game of COD, to break up the day, but never prioritized over work.
Bro this brings back Covid memories. I had so much fun last summer before we were sent back chilling in my apartment with my roommates during downtime. We'd play fifa and cod during turns and it was honestly so nice. We could also just pop outside for a walk. I think seniors severely underestimate how much some people hate the office and how good WFH can be - at least for a few days a week
Fuck working in the office.
It's amazing how many people absolutely hate commuting and/or working in an office yet a majority of people are still forced to do both those things
If you feel bad for yourselves, think about all the middle and bo folks that are also here. I get having to put up with shit to clear 500k+ but thinking about those monkeys earning 50, 60 or 70k actually boils my blood.
Yeah, but those moneky's get to log off at 5 everyday, oh and also to actually use their PTO. Aren't those the perks they are getting for taking a lower salary?
Exactly. If I was able to log off at 5 and not have to think about work for one second, but I have to go in everyday, I take the deal. But I leave the office just to go right back to work. What’s the point of me being there? Waste of time. Go to the office to work then go home to work.
All my friends who work in BO/MO can wfh whenever they want and barely work anyway lol. Honestly not a bad gig. The admins/ secretaries get fucked tho - low pay and still have to go in to support the bankers
God bless the Admins.
A bit off topic, but what do you want to do after your 2 years as an ANL? Go to PE?
Idk, maybe, but unlikely. I just hate corporate bullshit so much tbh. I can’t bear to work for 40 years slaving away for the benefit of other people. That’s just not what I want my life to be. Maybe I’ll go travel and bum around for a while and have some time to reconsider. I will never come back to banking though.
Sounds like you have rich parents haha
Y’all I think I played the system. Did a year in banking, got my bonus, quit, and now doing a full 6 week Int’l backpacking trip. Moving to a slightly less intense corporate job (which I couldn’t have landed had I not done banking) after this, but overall I’m leveraging my professional experience to gradually make my life easier. Sure, say all you want about the optimal “prestige / exit opps” I’m missing out on at this early age. Yes, I’m young and now is the time to work hard, but I’m still working harder than ~75% of my peers; and unlike the ~25% of my more “prestigious” peers, I’m actually able to occasionally stick my head out of the water and breathe a little bit, to where I won’t wake up one day and be like “wait, where tf did my 20s go?” BALANCE MATTERS. Just sayin. Whoever has the most fun in life wins; not whoever has the most $
For PJT you can now work from anywhere in August. Hopefully the industry follows
Can confirm true. Hopefully we will see this expanded among other banks and get even more wfh time than a month
Baller move from PJT
Can confirm MS as well... will be interesting to see if it's back to 4-5 days a week after LOL
Well for PJT, they confirmed that they want to do 4 days moving forward and will not make it 5 days
Aren’t some banks still hybrid?
barclays is
Guess that's where I'll be recruiting for this fall
Citi is hybrid as well
PJT is remote all of august for all but the new full times - I'm sure some other banks are too. It's a pretty nice perk, hope it stays. They're doing it for thanksgiving week and last 2 weeks in December as well.
new full times can be remote too at PJT
This is such a good idea but no way BBs do that. For some reason Jamie Dixon and his fellow CEOs insist on screwing over their juniors in any way they can
While they work remotely from their 3rd homes
This is fire. I wonder if firms will start offering "remote weeks". For example, you get 15 remote weeks per year to use at your discretion.
Don't think that would work as well tbh. Remote works when EVERYONE is remote. If some are in and some are out, it actually does become an impediment because you're operating with dif people in dif ways. If everyone is remote, we know we all need to catch up on zoom and I wont miss a convo my analyst/VP had in the break room. If we're all in person, my analyst will swing by and quickly let me know.
I think this is the only way it works - everyone is remote. everyone is on the same page. 15 weeks is honestly too much - I think this is probably the sweet spot (7 traditionally holiday weeks).
I love going into the office. I learn more quickly and have higher productivity than at home. To each their own, but I think it's good to be in the office at least 4 times a week as a junior. I hope IB's take an approach where some firms are hybrid, some remote, and some fully in-person, and people can work at the firm that makes them the most productive/happy.
Would you mind PMing me? I’m going to send your information to my boss so you guys can have a circle jerk suck fest about how great the office is
comments like this keep me coming back to wso. they net out the monthly "tech vs. ib" debates
Have nothing to add other than giving you another SB. Banking would be a lot better if everyone had your attitude. Not even talking about the WFH but towards life in general.
No idea why I got all that hate, especially since I said that I hope different IBs will have different work schedules so people can choose to work for a firm that provides the wlb they are looking for.
Why do you think it might be inconvenient / inefficient for firms people are already working at to have a WFH policy that is out of line with their preference so that they have to go to a new one, which also assumes they can be accepted by this other firm
Which banks are 5 days a week in office so that we know which ones to avoid?
BX is 4 days in, 2 days WFH. Not a bank but I think Apollo and KKR might be as well.
So 4 days in 1 WFH? You don't get to count weekend work as a WFH day since you should be home anyways lmao
You really want to spend more time in your 250 sq ft apartment?
People wouldn’t need to pay half their net income on a 250 sq ft shoebox if they were able to hybrid work and move further out of the city
So true
I would much rather have the ability to work wherever I want (my apartment, parents house, friends house, lol legitimately anywhere) than in the office
Some of us live in big places in jersey
Why are you still in banking then? There was another thread about shitty work where I mentioned attitudes like this are having a big impact on work product. By the way OP, I'm not saying you're wrong, but the prevalence of this idea (I don't really want to do this nor do I see it as a stepping stone) is relatively new.
My biggest question though is why are you doing it. Banking is very clearly not worth the paycheck at the junior levels. It is only worth it as a stepping stone to getting paid a lot more and working a lot less later in your career
Srsly ?
I don't understand. OP suggested they're not really career oriented. Banking isn't great - it isn't for everyone. And if you're doing it for the two year analyst stint paycheck, it definitely is not worth it. How is that a bad take?
"in RE"
Yup checks out. Good luck brotha man
Lol, were you the same guy that created a bunch of posts complaining about your bonus?
Boggles my mind that we dont have full autonomy on where we work post pandemic, truly. When YE hits, no one is going to make top bucket because they were in the office 5 days a week. However, people may be tied to mid or bottom bucket due to their "absence from the office", even if it is not directly stated during YE reviews.
Recently, Malcolm Gladwell officially went on record stating the importance of working in office, despite being a hypocritical coffee shop / sofa worker. He says that employees need to feel valued, and they cant feel valued working from home.
Lets be real, we are not valued members, but contractors. If we dont do the work we are expected to, we lose our jobs. We are not part of a corporate family, but many of us are part of REAL families and relationships. Shame on us for wanting to spend our limited free time / lunches with our SOs, with our friends / roommates, with the people who actually matter in our lives.
Look, I love my coworkers and truly value them. They are great people and incredibly smart. However, do not ever, for a second, think my relationships with my co-workers matter a fraction as much as the people who have been in my life for much longer. I do not get paid extra to eat with my co-workers, to shoot the shit with them during the downtime during the day, and this does not weigh in during YE reviews. Therefore, it is only logical to assume that I should have the flexibility to allocate that time toward my family and friends, the people that give my life meaning.
Dont even get me started on how important it is to have 1-2 days per week to stay at home to work in random chores throughout the work day. No one, especially bankers, like having to work 80+ hours a week and then spend their limited free time on the weekends doing laundry, hitting the grocery store, getting a haircut, etc. If you are a boomer who doesnt see the benefit of hybrid / remote work, you need to spend the time to speak with those who want it.
I understand the inherent benefits of being in office, and will always understand the value of being in a few days a week. I may not like it, find it necessary, or agree with it, but at least Ive taken the time to understand the POV. However, anyone stating that their team needs to be in office 5 days a week after proving we could work virtually for 1-2+ years doesnt have any idea how the world works anymore.
End rant
This is a great take. Very well said sir
This! Small things like license renewals, doctor's visits, grocery shopping, dealing with the VA, all have become infinitely more accessible to me since WFH. Things I would otherwise have to formally take off work for and burn my vacation days are now within reach and it allows me to live much more stress free. I strongly believe if you're staunchly anti-WFH at this point you're either willfully ignorant, or angrily boomerized (or are wildly biased against reality because you're significantly invested in CRE) and hate the idea of others being more than a slave chained to desk. It makes me think you're unable to get people to interact with you or you're physically unable to build meaningful connections with people unless they're forced to be in a room with you and be your subordinate. It makes me think no one on the outside likes you so you have to structurally demand others to be near you just so you're not ignored and lonely
Right on the money. Encompasses what lots of us are feeling. THank u
We have analysts that work remotely. They work in India at a third of the cost. Be careful what you wish for.
I bet their work quality is one third as good. Source: was at an IB where we outsourced a portion of the work to India. It was low quality, riddled with errors, and required heavy revising. Also, find me one reputable IB that is willing to state in their CIPs that their Analyst is working from India. It would be embarrassing. Whats next, they become Associates, then VPs, and suddenly your whole team is based in India? Where are you going to source quality Associates and VPs from if you are not training them in house? Defeats the whole point of Analysts.
Edit: for the record I did not throw MS
That's been my experience as well with the outsourced offices in India. I tried to train them many times, the same I would any Analyst but they never got any better. Eventually I just gave up trying to make them better so we would primarily use them to move logos around, populate buyer list info, get started on compiling research, etc., just a lot of the mundane stuff.
Great points. Also worth noting that analysts are not expensive in the context of what deals bring in for the firm.
Honestly this probably what IB (at least sell side M&A) will become in the future. There is no real NEED for analysts to be in the office, and honestly sellside M&A is super vanilla and easy to replicate. So outsourcing all the busy work (and let’s be real, its mostly all busy work) to India is not unlikely
I see your point, but a huge benefit of having analysts is mentoring them to be prepared to take on the Associate role. I think for that reason alone, they will always need to be US based.
No it really isn’t. Outsourcing is an utter failure. I was pointing out the logical fallacy that working from home is effective for the business
x
Go ahead and tell your investors that the people underwriting their multi-hundred million dollar investments are $3/hour Indians and watch their confidence in your firm expeditiously evaporate, your judgement questioned and your reputation dinged. If this is something that actually made sense you would've already done it years ago, but you already knew that. If you really are already outsourcing I'd bet my bonus you don't have "Mukesh Halal from Ahmedabad" on your website and you're smart enough to know that that's not something you advertise. I'm sure you're way ahead of the game though champ you seem like a critical thinker. Or maybe not since you've managed to remain in banking long enough to become an MD so can't exactly say you're one who spends too much time exploring what life has to offer outside of being some client's bitch
Jesus Christ
So what makes analysts WFH any different from the Indians?
How do you know what's ahemdabad, I get knowing Bombay and Delhi but AMD?
So good
Lack of physical presence is no big deal -> Proven fact
Lack of time zone overlap -> very big deal.
Lack of language skills / clear communication-> very big deal
India is not going to be taking away more white collar jobs from the USA. Ask anyone in the USA who has had to deal with outsourced India personnel
If you agree that when you work remotely at a client's site (which is remote from your office), you're still being productive, then you admit that remote work isn't inherently less productive than in-office work. If you believe that you can work effectively outside the office, I see no reason why your junior staff can't as well. If you don't believe this, look at IB fee revenues: 2021 was a record year for IB and a lot of the work was done at home; 2022 is much worse, and most of the work is done in the office. Sure correlation doesn't imply causation, and 2021 was a record year for IB transactions, but the way I'd spin it is that despite working from home, the junior staff were still able to effectively execute transactions despite the overwhelming workload.
Sorry, but this is the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard.
The whole point of going to the client site is to interact in person.
Couldn't agree more, F going into the office. It's easy for senior bankers to push for everyone to be in the office for "face-time" because that's what most of their job entails. Senior bankers spend most of their time in meetings and on phone calls so from their perspective being around colleagues is beneficial but that is not the same reality for junior bankers. If you're a junior banker and spend 90% of your time staring at a monitor there is very little if any benefit to being in the office, it's more of a burden than anything.
WFH = wank from home
Seems like you hate your job and have no interest in any of it. That’s fine. So…why are you even doing it? You literally don’t have to put up with it if you don’t want to.
I think many people may be able to agree with this: I don't love my job, but I don't despise it either. I tolerate work and generally don't mind what I do. I do not want to do banking long term like I mentioned, but I see it as a solid career foundation as many other people on this forum do as well. I am completely disinterested however, in working out of the office. I think banks have such an antiquated view on WFH and flexible work policies and it's pretty frustrating. I have found that this frustration has spilled over into other aspects of my work, and find my MD's dogmatic views on being in the office pretty dismissive and inconsiderate. To be frank, I just don't care about the benefits of working in an office that all the seniors talk about. My coworkers are not important to me, and I doesn't bother me if I dont have a good relationship with them. I have friends and family I would much rather be around. I also don't care if I don't get a top bucket bonus because of this - I would much rather have the ability to work where I want to. I feel as though covid pretty much proved that even if you don't know something, people are just a teams call away. The work will get done if it's important regardless of it's in an office or at home.
That's all fair. What do you want IB to set you up for? For another gig in high finance? It also sounds like you don't want to work in "finance America" so I'm not sure if IB is even providing you any material benefit.
It just seems like 1) you aren't passionate about your job, 2) you aren't really interested in establishing relationships with people you work with (and the people you work with now are generally going to be similar to most people in high finance), and 3) you have other life priorities that result in you not really wanting to have to be part of the grind.
Look, I don't particularly like working from the office either. But when I am there, it's a huge night and day difference in the collaboration, communication, and level of engagement vs. just WFH. It's just objectively different. And so since I do like and enjoy my job, working from the office a few times a week isn't the worst thing in the world. It seems like you don't like your job, your bank, the industry, and the people you work with, and that is what is impacting your strong distaste for the office.
Completely agree. What is with this all or nothing perspective? If you don't love it why do you do it?! Such a juvenile take
Agreed kind of… in person meetings are important. The rest can probably be done from home
Yeah but even so, when has an analyst or even associate/VP been necessary for an in person meeting?
Not necessarily necessary. It's moreso like why would you not want that facetime.
How do you learn to play an in person meeting if you’ve never been at one?
Obviously you would be going in for in-person pitches, on-site kick-off meetings, and other important meetings where you will learn how to navigate these situations. But the point is that there is no need to be in the office 4-5 days a week when the majority of the work an analyst does can be done from anywhere.
I think hybrid is the way to go, ideally 3 days at home and 2 days in the office.
the counterargument is why pay you $200-500k if they can pay $20-50k to guys in India who will do anything for this money (or $50-100k to guys in Mexico, or $100-200k to guys in Europe). under WFH your job will probably be outsourced overseas.
having said that, I love WFH a lot.
This argument holds no water imo. If banks could reliably outsource our work to India or Mexico, it would have been done so years ago. What, they are paying us as much as they are, from the goodness of their heart?
You clearly have not worked with any team from India. I don’t trust them to spread comps effectively. The work is utter trash and error prone and something about the culture/education system there seems to prevent critical thinking from forming.
My BB moved their BO/MO support to Texas from India, is exiting the country, and we were fined millions for compliance issues.
You can’t outsource to Europe, the work culture is completely different, and they have different regulations. And there’s a time zone difference. Asia? I would love to see a BB explain how they are outsourcing all their work to an office in Beijing.
Not to mention pipeline for senior bankers relies on analysts. Simply put, if junior bankers demand to WFH, banks will have no choice put comply. They need talented young people way more than we need them at this point. Too many alternatives now.
Outsource to India an IB analysts’ work hahaha dumbest shit I’ve ever heard.
Based
You can't outsource to Europe or East Asia as they're hubs in of themselves, it wouldn't make sense
excellent response.
are analysts in US not making mistakes? I worked with support teams in India, and they indeed make mistakes, however analysts in US who would do this work otherwise make as many mistakes on average, so as a senior, you just need to check their work and fix it regardless.
and yeah, there is time difference, which is why for note taking you might still want a local analyst on calls, but for modeling let the Indian support work on the model while you sleep and then check and fix it in the morning. it's even better because this way the modeling can be done 24 hours a day - just passing the model back and forth.
and for the reason why the work is still not fully outsourced at each bank, I personally believe it's for the following reasons:
1) seniors realize that their work can be outsourced too
2) seniors have kids and they wish their kids to be able to have jobs and not suffer from too much outsourcing, so they don't wanna be a catalyst that causes their kids to be unemployed
3) seniors are too old to research ways to optimize work and it's better to keep things how they are and not rock the boat, especially cause they're making a killing already. that's the reason people still use Excel and PowerPoint instead of Alteryx and PowerBI.
I like working in person. I concentrate better and get work done. Working from home diminishes the quality and collaboration of the workplace, therefore affecting me.
Interesting - I cannot think about writing content for a CIM when I’m in the bullpen with people on calls left and right
I’m 22 years into my career and for the moment I still have the flexibility to work from home every day and have allowed my team to do the same.
I will never. And I repeat never ever work from an office 5 days a week again. Nor would I require that for anyone working for me.
my biggest reason = avoiding commuting saves me 1.5 hours a day - if not more. I cannot express how valuable that time is to me as it allows me to put more effort into my job with less sacrifice (less time away from my family).
It’s an absolute sea change for me. I’ll never. Ever. Ever go back 5 days.
MDs who are making their team go into the office every day are gayer than ISIS
Will take a contrarian view, but I'm not in IB so maybe it differs. Plenty of friends are, so again this is partially Devil's advocate here. But just thinking out loud.
I'm on a small-ish team, < 10 team members and so we were back in the office 4-5 days a week since late '20. Interacting with other smart people especially as I'm a more junior member on a team I felt was valuable. Information flow and teaching is big in an investing seat and so I felt that being close and having easy access to thorough explanation through a trade or investment was actually important. Now look, I very much enjoyed being on the beach for 6 months and working at a pace that was comfortable. Wasn't that hard to get on a team Zoom once or twice a week to catch up on ideas and such, and I don't know WHAT phenomenon explains this but it really changes interpersonal dynamics NOT being in person. Call me antiquated or conservative but I'm fairly junior in finance and still feel that there's some notion of importance in face to face contact. Doing phone calls and Zooms are fine and get the job done, but I guess this all depends on the purpose of what you're doing it for. I don't think I'd ever hire someone I didn't meet in person.
This all said, one area of pushback as it pertains to banking is: I noticed more IB analysts and my peers especially being worked harder as a result of WFH - (to clarify being worked harder /= working harder). I know this is inherently a flaw in the entire system of WFH and should be remedied, but largely if you have (in theory) an unlimited amount of time to be working, a higher % of your total time spent will be working. I think that's consistent across anyone in the industry, regardless of where you are in the hierarchy. MD's have more time to be hopping on Zoom calls and less time needed spent traveling to and from clients, so they can pitch more frequently. That means more work for the analysts and associates. Again I haven't worked in IB FT and only interned pre-COVID, so maybe I'm off base here but it seems like WLB actually deteriorated for most of my junior banking friends as a result of WFH, and many were actually excited to get back into the office to have a divider between work life and personal. That is excluding some of their separate desires to have a sense of camaraderie and feel of value.
Productivity is another thing fwiw. I think > 50% of people if they had to attempt to objectively evaluate their overall productivity would probably admit they're more productive in office, for better or worse (incoming: one guy who anecdotally shares how much more productive he is WFH). I cannot speak for IB in particular, but if we are all operating under the assumption that finance is a meritocracy (and my industry is), then those who are most productive should excel at the job, move up quicker, be paid more, and the like. Obviously there's a generational divide as there is in society where older members want the younger members to have the same process and experience that they had in their junior days, so naturally there's a dislocation always. Protected Saturday's weren't a thing 20 years ago and I'm sure plenty of MD's have closeted anger that those exist. I'm of the view that if your work product doesn't suffer as a result, it shouldn't matter if you're working from Australia for an NYC-based job.
To wrap this jumble of thought I'll say that it should be an OPTION. There are people who are either 1) incredibly introverted and prefer the WFH privacy and/or 2) would like to spend their free time with family/friends outside of the office. I'll admit I'll ask to WFH once in a while to get some chores done, do laundry, run to the dry cleaners, go grocery shopping, etc., so I do understand the value of the WFH premise. Avoiding a commute or taking much needed away time from the screen is valuable to mental health as well and there are a laundry list of positives from WFH to the individual. I'm more here to give the opposite viewpoint - my personal view is WFH vs. in-office doesn't impact me either way so trying to maintain objectivity.
I’m an MD and I have no interest I’m being in the office with the exception of client meetings, internal management discussions and recruiting-related obligations.
In hindsight, I’m actually amazed I did 5 days a week as a junior banker (A2A) - especially when I spent the majority of the day twiddling my fingers only to get shit on at 5pm
I’d be curious to know what first year analysts think as it is likely harder to learn in isolation.
Do you make your juniors come in?
No. If I’m not there, what’s the point of them being there?
Only time I really expect people in is for actual client meetings or that rare occasion when meeting in person is actually more efficient ( I can count that on one hand)
Again, could be the bifurcation I highlighted in the difference b/w banking and investing from a junior standpoint. Also, my point largely was more that WLB actually worsens in the WFH environment in most cases I've seen on the banking side, albeit anecdotally.
It's definitely harder to learn in isolation but I think as long as the analysts are willing to call their associates / VPs to ask questions it is fine. The learning curve may be extended weeks / months with WFH but the quality of life has improved exponentially. Banking is no longer taking up 90% of a junior banker's life, which in turn reduces burnout and probably improves their work quality as a result.
Why do banking at all then?
It'd be interesting to hear from other members on the buyside involved in associate recruiting the past 1-2 years, but my direct experience in interviewing associate candidates is that although there has been a hiring frenzy at the associate level, the actual talent has been remarkably below average. Friends at other PE firms and major headhunter firms have agreed. It's been challenging to find good associate candidates, and that's coincided with the WFH trend the 2 years. So although no one LOVES working at the office, it's been pretty obvious to see how WFH has negatively impacted the development of IB analysts.
Can guarantee this is completely false lol. Correlation does not imply causation but nice try
Nice, welcome to the conversation incoming ASO1.
I'd agree. Either there's some lack of innate desire to want to be an investor or they seem unequipped to handle "the next level." I don't mean it in a rude way but it seems the newer crops of junior banking people are less certain about where they want to be headed, and most seem infatuated by trends rather than they are operating a biz in PE, working on investing in transactions, trading and investing in public mkts, etc. I'm sure to some extent every generation said this but it largely feels the days of PE/HF exits are less highly regarded and so therefore the IB analysts in those channels weaken as a result.
That and the notion that isolating these guys in WFH has limited their ability to socialize at the corporate level. And then yes just the technical ability of most candidates seemed below par in the last 1-2 years...
Talking about LO AM investing here rather than PE, but I can guarantee you that if you got hired to my company in the last two years, you got really lucky. There's no question that recent groups of hires have been of lower quality on both a technically-oriented basis and social basis. But I think a degree of this is that my firm simply hired a really wide array of people that we would have been really unlikely to hire in any other year. The plurality of our junior hires are from IB, including a small number from notable BB groups. The common thing about them is a lack of long-term thinking about their careers. I've long believed that many pursue IB not just out of the desire for money or prestige or whatever, but just as much out of indecision, and I think that's been seen in our recent hiring cohort. Curious if anyone here has insight on this and kind of analysts who pursue LO AM.
Also worth mentioning my company believes thoroughly in WFH as a negative, and as convenient as WFH is, I personally think I've learned quite a bit investing-wise being in office. Learning in my current job was really tough with WFH. But due to the location of the office I work in, very few are inclined to come in, so this has negated some benefits of coming in.
Can you elaborate on the lack of long term thinking piece? Do you mean they make bonehead decisions that will cost them later or that they don’t seem to care/know if they want to do AM forever and it shows?
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