Cantor Fitzgerald, the private financial-services firm run by billionaire Howard Lutnick, has set a June 1 date for all U.S. front-office staff to ditch sweatpants and video calls, and return to full-time work in-person.
The bulk of front-office staff have been back since last summer, said Karen Laureano-Rikardsen, a spokeswoman. The mandate, which also applies to employees of affiliate BGC Partners, affects the fewer than 10% of workers who haven’t yet returned to the headquarters in New York City, and to offices such as those in Watermill, Long Island; Greenwich and Darien, Connecticut; Summit, New Jersey; and Miami.
The firm is seeking to have back-office employees return to its offices full-time by July 6, she said. Returning employees are encouraged, but not required to be vaccinated.
Wall Street firms have laid out plans for workers to return to the office with varying degrees of flexibility. JPMorgan Chase & Co. mandated a return to office for its entire U.S. workforce by early July on a rotational schedule, while Blackstone Group Inc. has asked U.S. investment professionals to return full-time on June 7 if they are fully vaccinated.
Cantor affiliate Newmark Group Inc., which counts Lutnick as chairman, is following suit. “Newmark will welcome and expect everyone back in the office, in-person, from June 1st, subject to CDC and state and local guidelines,” Deb Bergman, a Newmark spokeswoman, said in an emailed statement.
Last year, Cantor paid some new analysts to defer their start date until 2021 as it contended with strains of operating through the pandemic. In April 2020, it shrank its workforce, breaking with firms across Wall Street that vowed not to lay off employees during a pandemic.
—With assistance from Sridhar Natarajan.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.