Deutsche Bank AG, also offering leeway, has told investment bankers in New York to plan on operating from offices no later than after Labor Day in September. Credit Suisse Group AG has told fully vaccinated employees in New York that they can begin returning on Monday as well, though all staff won’t resume full-time, in-office work until September.
“People will, by and large, return to the office,” said Alex Howard-Keyes, a vice president at the recruiting firm Kingsley Gate Partners who focuses on the financial services industry. “If you’re a big risk taker there will be pressure to get you back in the office full time. If you’re more client facing I suspect there will be a degree of latitude.”
This same divide is expected to soon play out in other industries and cities across the U.S. as companies from technology giants like Facebook Inc. to carmakers like General Motors Corp. have all promised workers more remote work in the future.
In New York City, where about 46% of residents were fully vaccinated as of Friday, the economy’s fate rests on Wall Street. The state has long estimated that 1-in-10 of the city’s jobs are directly or indirectly tied to the securities industry, which also accounts for one-fifth of private sector wages in New York.
Further behind the scenes, banks and their technology partners are crafting more fundamental long-term changes for how the industry will operate. They’re drawing on lessons executives learned when businesses across Manhattan suddenly had to work remotely. It turned out to be surprisingly doable.
Now, even banks eager to restock Manhattan towers are working on plans for shifting more of those jobs to other cities—a concept getting dubbed the “distributed trading floor.”
Businesses that once had to be run from New York will increasingly be handled from states with lower costs of living such as Texas, North Carolina and Florida. A lot of tech talent prefers to live in those places anyway, said Likhit Wagle, general manager of global banking and financial markets at IBM Corp.
“A successful trader now needs to be somebody who’s very adept at taking advantage of artificial intelligence and machine learning,” Wagle said. “Those types of individuals are not available in London, New York or Frankfurt. They have strong views on work lifestyle balance, and a lot of them have indicated they’re not willing to move.”
For now, bankers are returning to offices that look vastly different than what they left behind March 2020.
Tall plastic barriers slice between desks while certain chairs in conference rooms have been blocked off to encourage social distancing. Common, too, are sanitizer stations. Masks may not be required for employees who are fully vaccinated, but daily health checks often will be.
Good indoor air quality is now among the most sought-after amenities for corporations hunting office space, said Julie Whelan, global head of occupier research at real estate services firm CBRE. She jokes that many clients have become amateur HVAC specialists, focusing more on ventilation systems than fitness facilities and access to public transportation.
“The things that used to drive building adoption—these are all at the bottom of the list,” Whelan said.
—With assistance from Sonali Basak and Steve Dickson.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.