- Executives at Chase and Deutsche Bank are among those on Wall Street grappling with the threat presented by a surge in coronavirus infections as winter approaches.
- Surveys have shown that workers report fear and high levels of stress about physically heading back to the office.
- Here’s a look at Wall Street firms’ timelines for calling workers back, some of which are starting now, and others which won’t kick in till 2021.
- Are you a finance industry professional who is concerned about going back to work? Contact this reporter confidentially at rhodkin@businessinsider.com.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Wall Street’s plans to get employees back to work are starting to be slowed by an intense surge in coronavirus infections that has gripped the United States.
Indeed, as more of the nation experiences targeted lockdowns or imposes measures like curfews in an effort to curtail the explosive spread of coronavirus cases, some financial institutions are issuing general guidance to keep employees home.
Chase Bank, the retail banking arm of JPMorgan, recently told its US employees that “most US employees working remotely today will continue to do so at least through the end of March,” in a statement sent internally in November.
And, in a memo reviewed by Business Insider, Deutsche Bank told some front-office personnel from its investment-banking group based in the US that they too should work from home until further notice, after it had started incrementally bringing some of them back.
Even as the intense insurgence in infections was just rounding a corner in October, workers expressed fears about heading back to work. Roughly three in four (73%) said that they are concerned about their health and safety at work, according to results of a survey released in October which was conducted by Envoy, a tech company that works with firms like Hulu, Slack, and Stripe.
What’s more, as many as 80% of Americans remain uneasy about doing “normal” activities outside of the safety of their homes as the pandemic rolls on, according to a survey conducted by consulting firm McKinsey, the results of which were released in early November.
In the lead up to the holidays, companies across a variety of industries have begun encouraging their employees to limit their potential exposure to the coronavirus, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
Earlier in the summer and fall, some Wall Street employers were itching to get teams back to the office, but the winter surge could upend those plans, with cases edging closer toward 200,000 per day in the United States, according to mid-November case counts from the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.
Business Insider is closely watching Wall Street firms that are bringing people back to the office, and we’ll continue to update this list as companies solidify their plans.
Are you a finance industry professional who is concerned about going back to work? Contact this reporter confidentially at rhodkin@businessinsider.com.
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