Wall Street says, ‘No, really — take Sunday off.’
Bank of America has recommended its junior employees take one day off every weekend. It isn’t the only firm on Wall Street suggesting a change. JP Morgan says it will hire more junior people to lessen the workload. Goldman Sachs has created a junior officer task force to look into the issue.
“You’ve got to wonder what’s behind this,” says Nancy Koehn, historian at the Harvard Business School. “Is this about cleaning Wall Street’s image… or is this about attracting talent?”
Koehn says Wall Street faces competition from Silicon Valley, where young workers expect high pay and lots of perks.
Koehn says it will take a lot more than these company recommendations to change workplace culture on Wall Street.
“You can bet all those folks, whether they take the Sunday off or not are going to be logged into their smartphone answering every single email that comes their way,” she says.
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