Morgan Stanley CEO to NYC workers: Be back in the office by September or else

[brooklynite]

Source: CNN

New York (CNN Business)The CEO of one of Wall Street's top investment banks has a message for employees in its New York offices. You need to come back to work this fall.

Morgan Stanley (MS) chief James Gorman said at an investing conference earlier this week that it's time for the bank's New York workers to head back to the office now that more people are getting vaccinated for Covid-19 and life is slowly returning to normal.

"If you can go to a restaurant in New York City, you can come into the office. And we want you in the office," Gorman said.

Gorman made the comments Monday at an annual conference about financial payments and commercial real estate. He joked that he was doing so from the company's New York office — and while wearing a suit and tie to boot.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2021/06/16/investing/morgan-stanley-ceo-return-to-office/index.html

[bucolic_frolic]

1. So many people are buffing up their home gigs

I suspect there will be in-office openings when the Class of 2020 reports for duty.

[Warpy]

14. A lot of their best people are going to choose "or else"

over 80 hour work weeks with another 20 hours of commuting on top.

The sicence is in: the optimum number of hours to work per day if you're doing brain, not brawn, is four. Anything over that and you are just spinning your wheels or goofing off.

https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/this-is-the-ideal-number-of-hours-to-work-a-day-ac.html

[yardwork]

24. Well, I disagree with that. Many people work more than 4 effective hours a day.

[Warpy]

36. Read the article, the data are in

and while every statistical norm has some outliers, that's what they are, a minority.

There's a reason DU is busiest during working hours.

Corporate honchos need to realize this and stop requiring stupidly long work weeks. They're not getting the best out of employees and the employees are getting burned out.

[yardwork]

40. One study is not conclusive.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

50. It's more conclusive than "nuh uh"

[RobinA]

26. Pretty Much!

I worked for a corporation about 20 years ago that thought they could save electricity by having most people work 10 hour days 4 days a week. So we did the 10 hour day thing. How much work got done in that extra 2 hours? Very little. Everyone just killed time until they could leave. I'm in favor of being able to leave when the work is done. Yes, I know this doesn't work for many jobs. I'd be out at noon almost every day.

[Warpy]

38. I had to be there for my job, I was a nurse

but I can tell you figuring out drips at the end of the shift was much tougher than it was 12 hours earlier. Fortunately, we had all the formulae plugged into the computer, but I could do it in my head when I wasn't exhausted. That's after a 12 hour shift. I was much sharper at the end of an 8 hour shift. At the end of a double, 16 hour shift I was not only talking to the furniture, it was talking back. I only got stuck with a couple of those and I was in my 30s then, but they were still brutal.

Long hours are simply not going to be productive hours. Employers have to catch on.

[flying_wahini]

48. I guess it depends on the kind of work. As a hospital nurse I hardly ever stopped working.

[Warpy]

49. Me too

so we're both nuts. Hospitals I worked in were generally not in the best neighborhoods, so the commutes weren't bad, especially in Boston when I could knit or read on the subway. My longest commute in NM was 20 minutes with traffic, 15 without.

The jobs where people rebel are office jobs that can easily be done remotely since so much these days is paperless. There is no reason to do long commutes to sit in a cube.

Of course, as Morgan Stanley is demonstrating, it's a power thing. Once it dawns on them how much money they can save on office space, overhead, and worker turnover, they might see the light and require office visits once a week or so on staggered days.

[Happy Hoosier]

51. Maybe, but that's part of the process, right?

Disclosure: I work from home and have done for 17 years.

But I'd say this kind of tension has it's upsides. Companies will want to retain their best employees, and my guess is they will make some individual accommodations. For others, they may fee the labor is more fungible and easily replaced. They will find out one way or another.

Of course, some jobs cannot be performed effectively from home. My work is 99% "knowledge" work. I don't need to be at specific site except in rare circumstances. But we do have labs, and someone has to maintain and run them. That requires someone to be onsite.

And for knowledge work, some of that can be effectively distributed, and some people work GREAT in that environment (I would not trade my current team for the world). Other need the immediacy of being in a room with someone to effectively collaborate.

[Warpy]

54. Good companies focus on retaining productive people

Not all companies are good companies and honchos on power trips will be thrilled to replace seasoned people with green kids right out of college who will live in cheap studio apartments closer to the job and forgo having a life for a few years. It's a costly policy because the kids wise up and leave and they're always training new ones, but hey, those cube farms are full.

[brooklynite]

2. Went out for dinner last night (Detrtoit Pizza)...restaurant full at 100% capacity.

People may prefer a work from home structure, but there's no reason to "be afraid" at this point.

[hibbing]

3. I'm back in a cube after over a year

It sucks and there really is no reason I could not work from home, but I did not have that choice. I don't know if the organization just renewed the lease of the floor or what.

I will say that downtown where my office is seems pretty unoccupied. Two bank branches in buildings next to mine are empty. Hardly anyone walking around downtown and the parking garages all seem more than half empty.

Peace

[jimfields33]

4. Honestly if teachers and medical staff have to work in a building,

Then financial people making six figures can too.

[Marthe48]

6. I liked that some of the pollution numbers were lower

I hope that there is a bigger push for distance employment. Or more interest in public transportation

[AllaN01Bear]

9. i know a # of teachers whom say they miss the contact with their kids.

[Sherman A1]

5. He may be in for an education

Come September.

[secondwind]

7. It's NYC. I don't think this will be a BFD for most.

[Sherman A1]

11. I have family that work in Manhattan

And their employer is pushing hard to get people back into the office, the staff is pushing back equally hard to not go back. Her report is that it really isn’t safe, the services are no longer there as they once were and she along with others have grown accustomed to a more suburban lifestyle.

[appalachiablue]

20. I can understand that totally. #18

[onlyadream]

28. The crime in Manhattan has went up significantly.

IMHO, I think a modified "in work" week should be home for three days, at work for two. That way it's a good compromise.

[weissmam]

47. or home for one to two and in for

three to four, is how zi see it and that's is dependent on your boss and what you are doing

[edhopper]

8. A company is allowed to tell workers where they work

And the NYC economy can really use workers back downtown. There are a lot of closed up storefronts because of the pandemic.

[Random Boomer]

30. No one owes the "downtown economy" anything

And yes, a company can tell the workers where they work. Just as workers can leave and seek employment with a more flexible company.

I'm fortunate in that the company I work for is leaving it up to us whether we continue working from home or return to the office (sometime in early 2022). The past year has shown me just how exhausted I've been and how much my health has improved without a commute. I'm staying home.

[edhopper]

39. I agree they don't "owe" them

I was just saying it would be good for the small businesses downtown for people to come back to work.

[smb]

10. He May Find That, With Competition From Other Employers With Less Control-Freakish Policies...

...the Invisible Hand ultimately gives him the Invisible Finger.

[jaxexpat]

21. That's my thinking too.

What, exactly, is the or else? Or else he'll just quit and stay home himself? He'll hire people who have the skills he needs, just like that? in a flash?

Could be the "or else" is really that he won't have a clue about how to fix it back like it was. He didn't make it, now it's broken and he doesn't know how to repair it. Maybe it'll turn out that everyone agrees he's just another overcompensated leech, looking for the undercompensated to bail his ass out.

[Random Boomer]

32. Thank goodness I work for a more forward-thinking CEO

Our management pivoted on a dime for the pandemic shutdown, turning the entire company virtual over the course of a weekend. After a successful year, with no loss of productivity, our CEO is allowing each office to manage their own opening and each employee to decide their return schedule. We also have the option of not returning at all, which is going to be my choice. There's no point in driving in to the office to sit in front of my computer all day doing the exact same remote work I do from home now.

Our flexible work approach will be an excellent recruiting benefit the coming years.

[roamer65]

12. Really good opportunity for enterprising, progressive companies to steal talent.

Also, just wait until the kiddies go back to in-person school and start spreading the Delta variant.

[modrepub]

13. Not Just New York

Same story is setting up in Philadelphia. Most cities are strongly dependent on workers who live in the adjoining suburbs and commute into towns for their jobs. Wage taxes and subsequent income from the office drones keep city tax coffers full.

Others have noted that most metropolitan areas have short-cutted their way to prosperity. In stead of investing in local education to develop their own skilled employment pool they've pilfered the adjoining suburb's for talent. This has lead to the cities being creators of jobs that pay for an ample existence for people outside of their domains and low-wage jobs for local residents that support their commuter counterparts.

I for one do not relish the 3 hr daily commute to my inner-city workplace. But I'll do it if I have to for another decade until I can retire. Maybe I'll get more telework options but I really don't see us being allowed to work from home 100% of the time. Economically, the cities would not function under those circumstances.

[Elessar Zappa]

27. NYC

has plenty of tax payers in the city. It’s absurd to say the suburbs are funding cities. That’s what Republicans have claimed for a long time, because they hate cities because they have more minorities. It’s bigoted bullshit.

[modrepub]

29. Maybe Not Entirely Funding

I can tell you for a fact there are people in Pike County, PA and the Allentown area who commute into the NYC metro area to work. They've been doing that for decades. Mostly professionals but also some low wage folks who commute in groups. I and many others in the Philly area are doing the same.

The point I'm trying to make is that many cities instead of making long-term investments in developing their own workforce to actually fill these high paying jobs with folks who actually live within their bounds, have been just having folks with more developed skills commute into the cities and charging them higher wage taxes (as Philly does). If you don't believe me, how many minority folks who grew up in local neighborhoods work in most of the cities' glass cathedrals (office buildings)? I can tell you from my experience maybe 10-20% of the folks I work with actually grew up in the city and went through the local public school system. There are, however, more folks that I work with who went to college at local universities within the City of Philadelphia.

This is one of the problems with our current system. Cities (and states for that matter) don't want to make long term investments in developing their local population's life skills choosing instead to import the bulk of the talent from outside their confines. This leaves the locals who do not posses a certain skill set to set up shop supporting the commuter class.

The Pandemic has short-circuited the normal flow and threatens to upend this model. That may be a good thing if state and local officials can actually focus on providing a more even development of their citizens' human capital. I'm for giving everyone a chance through education. Right now that's not happening.

[keithbvadu2]

15. Going back

[Aristus]

17. Or else make your sales cold-calls your-own-damned-self, asshole!

[appalachiablue]

18. These days, I'd pass on a 42 fl bldg, elevators

no fresh air, and subway/public trans. if possible. Realizing that many still can and will work in the city, that's fine.

I did lots of city time, the urban warrior work lifestyle and then some.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgan_Stanley_Building

[Lucky Luciano]

19. I mostly agree with this for the financial sector.

For people trying to make seven figures, collaboration and teaching/learning to/from others is vital. That is best done in person for the same reason that children learn more in classrooms than zoom.

If you just want a basic jobby job without ambition for a parabolic career trajectory, then yeah sure - work from home.

[csziggy]

22. While I don't use Morgan Stanley, I do prefer meeting with my financial advisor in person

In fact, that is one of the major reason I plan to stick with the local office of the company I chose rather than move my accounts to a different company that provides more of a full service but that is only in a large city a few hundred miles away.

I've been worrying about this - my financial position is about to undergo a major change and I really want to be able to meet my advisor in person. But his little office is still not open to the public and I am not sure when it will be. I can talk to him over the phone but he can't show me the charts and other items on his computer screen to help me understand his recommendations.

Maybe by the time I have to have the meeting with him, things will change - I hope so.

[Javaman]

23. MS is going to shed a lot of employees...

and it won't be due to just the threats.

the workers of this nation are realizing now they have options, options that have always been there but were either afraid to us them or didn't know about them.

this kind of hard ass approach to getting people back to work will fail.

where I work, my company has been very gentle about getting people back in the office, they get it, but that still hasn't stopped a huge turn over.

the times are a changing and hopefully it will be in the workers favor.

[Jetheels]

25. If white color workers don't return to the office, at least a few days a week,

won’t their jobs be in jeopardy of being shipped overseas?
If they are working from home, I don’t see why their company would keep them on when the company could very likely could find someone in India or wherever to do the same job, and pay them way less money.

[onlyadream]

33. If they could have done it, they would have done it. nt

[weissmam]

46. yup!

[turbinetree]

31. JP Morgan Chase....

[Johnny2X2X]

34. Good luck attracting and keeping top talent

The young talented workers who are the lifeblood of companies are wanting to WFH more. Companies taking hard lines like this will lose out.

[weissmam]

45. for everyone that wants to WFH more

there are three that will take there place in the office

[Johnny2X2X]

53. That's not true

There is a worker shortage right now, that shortage is more severe the higher the skill level. Young and talented professionals right now have their pick of WFH jobs, you build your company's future off the ideas of the young and talented. Getting and keeping those types of employees is extremely competitive. And finance and banking is ever more becoming tech related, ideas are what will keep Morgan Stanley competitive, they just said goodbye to a lot of new ideas with this move.

Workers hold the cards right now. It won't always be that way, but it is right now.

[Happy Hoosier]

52. This kind of tension is GOOD.

I think that many companies are finding that elements they assumed were essential were not. Others are more reluctant to change. There will be process whereby one approach proves superior to the other. Economic transformation happens because of such things.

[Raftergirl]

35. Most of these employees

will go back to the office because they will be hard pressed to find jobs that pay them as much as working on Wall Street does - and they have big mortgages and other life style expenses that require a huge salary. They will piss and moan but they will go back because they won’t be able to afford not to.

The business want them to come back because they are playing huge amounts on their multi year leases on the prime real estate where their offices are and they want to get their monies worth.

[Initech]

37. Well not just that businesses are going to have a hard time monitoring WFA employees.

My company had an impossible time with that last year, and anyone who chooses to do that this year will be met with added levels of surveillance. And I'm guessing this will get costly for businesses as time goes on. Where this will really impact businesses is small businesses like mine. A large publicly traded company like Morgan Stanley it shouldn't affect much.

[Lucky Luciano]

41. Monitoring is not the issue for Wall St people. They are driven.

The issue is that collaborating over zoom has its limits.

I work for a huge option market-making firm (a leading prop shop). I have never met my colleagues in person.

I built a systematic trading system for a product we need to get bigger in and it is working well. I bet I would have built it in half the time if I could have collaborated and learned the infrastructure better with the longer term employees. On top of that, a huge amount of other parts of the learning curve would have been traversed by now if I could have just tapped someone on the shoulder sitting next to me instead of slacking and zooming.

I feel very bad for the interns and junior people who will have a harder time getting a mentor to really go to bat for them, teach them, and take them under their wing. Just like children having a harder time learning by zoom in school, the same applies to adults!

I return to the office July 12, but I have the option to return in 2022. Of course, I walk to work also.

[weissmam]

43. good points all

communication and collaboration suffer , there are no personnel relationships and training is impossible

[weissmam]

44. I am back and I hugged my chair

[weissmam]

42. who ever writes the pay check calls the shots