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

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

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10 pointsjacquesm16 comments

This was discussed earlier this week, will update this post if I can find that thread.

In a nutshell: Morgan Stanley is actually the last major investment bank to require its employees to come back to the office; many of its competitors already require employees to be back in their seats now that NYC is "fully reopened."

In addition, they didn't have the same levels of attrition last year as they normally plan for, so they actually have too many people at the lower levels that didn't funnel out.

So losing a bunch of workers who decide not to come back to the office doesn't really hurt them: they need employees who stuck around due to COVID19 to filter themselves out for their up-and-out staffing scheme to get back on track.

Some people dream of the day when a mass of millions of people quitting together will shake the big employers to the bone. That will show them. It's almost a dream of "workers of the world, unite!".

The thing is, if 40% of people plan to quit, they won't quit at the same time. Maybe 5% will quit in August, let's say, and the rest will decide to wait a bit and see. And they'll see how those 5% don't quite find a job the next day, as they thought they would. Most (if not all of the) large companies can function for quite a while with 5% fewer headcount. So those 35% in the wait-and-see bucket will wait a bit more. Which is a different way of saying, they will change their mind.

Morgan Stanley pays their bonuses at the end of the year. Very few will quit in August. Only the ones who were on their way out anyway. Most will work hard to find jobs between now and December when they receive their "bonus".

Probably true - but just adding the bonuses aren't known until mid January and not paid out til end of Jan or Feb.

It's precarious if people make it too obvious they are searching when there is bonus-decision-time being done. Someone might hear a tip and not pay you anything if they know you might leave.

While I feel strongly about the opinion, I think this is a good thing. As a worker, I’d much prefer a clear message like this so that I know what is expected so I can act and choose whether this fits with me than a let’s try this and see how it works approach, that muddies the waters and leads to fear and confusion.

Good time for competitors to poach and incentivize Morgan Stanley talent. ‘Pls join us, btw we offer wfh as benefit’

The LinkedIn messages from recruiters write themselves, and it isn't hard to find these folks on LinkedIn.

Or else... they'll quit.

> But as office returns accelerate, some employees may want different options. A May survey of 1,000 U.S. adults showed that 39% would consider quitting if their employers weren’t flexible about remote work. The generational difference is clear: Among millennials and Gen Z, that figure was 49%, according to the poll by Morning Consult on behalf of Bloomberg News.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-01/return-to...

I feel like this is overstated. How many people are always considering leaving their job? When it comes down to wfh will just be another benefit companies can offer. If a company doesn't want to offer wfh, then they better pay more or they won't get as good as talent.

For a large proportion of people there has been a real opportunity for increased well-being though improved work-life balance. Now there are those to whom this development is antithetical to their business' culture and vision and they will try to incentivize or threaten their workforce into complying with the former status quo.

Normally you'd be right, but now is a different time. There has never been such an across-the-board shift in people's routines: greater possibility to spend time with the people they care about, newly found opportunities for hobbies, all the trite and important self-care activities vital to mental and physical health.

There is definitely some percentage of people who have suddenly found flexibility and would not trade it willingly. And some percentage of those who have moved far out enough to not be able to trade it really at all. I don't think a big company will struggle to find people willing to work locally, but a small company can definitely use this as an opportunity

That's tough. Throughout my entire career almost no one cared about work life balance, although some claimed that they did. It depends on your role. Have you ever heard the following: "It's IT. Of course there's on-call and weekend work"? I have, dozens of times.

Work-life balance is a matter of good management and - in the United States - a LOT of luck. It's extremely rare in tech in the medium to high paying roles. It's endemic to the tech culture, and the competitive nature of people. In tech and especially in finance. There are personality types that get you tarnished for suggesting work-life balance is a thing.

Yo! Wall Street brain drain victims! There's a world outside that damn bank full of interesting problems to solve with people that won't treat you like a Kleenex!

Let the economy work itself out! The Narcissists will burn out without your talent soon enough!

Do the rest of the world and yourself a favor!

t. Fintech ex-patriate

And go to what industries in NYC? Ad-tech is one of the worst industries I've ever worked in, both from a work-life balance and from an ethical perspective. I've never seen such slimy individuals as I saw in the ad-tech space, and I've never seen that many layoffs, either.

Finance dominates in NYC, although there seems to be an increasing tech presence.

Jim isn't prepared for the new world. The world may not care that he is, anymore.

Maybe, another scam with renting offices to Morgan Stanley.

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