Goldman Sachs Lifts Office COVID Restrictions
By Nicholas Rizzi August 31, 2022 1:54 pm
reprints
It looks like some banks didn’t get the memo that remote work is here to stay.
Goldman Sachs will lift all of its COVID-19 office restrictions after Labor Day, which some see as a push to get its entire staff back in the office five days a week. Archrival JPMorgan Chase (JPM) has been not so quietly pushing its employees to do the same, according to the New York Post and a source.
On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs sent a memo to staff saying they don’t need to be vaccinated, get tested for COVID, or wear masks to come back into the offices as “there’s significantly less risk of severe illness,” according to the memo obtained by Commercial Observer.
Goldman Sachs has had its staff come into the office full-time since 2021 and the new measure urges those who have been staying home “without an approved exemption” to return. It does so amid a shakeup in New York City’s office market as more firms ditch strict in-person work policies.
In recent weeks, Amazon, Facebook, Yelp, HSBC Bank USA, Twitter, Lyft, KPMG and more have cut down on their office footprint or halted plans to add more office space as an increasing number of firms make hybrid work permanent. But Goldman Sachs isn’t the only outlier committed to in-person work.
Apple told its workers that they will soon be required to head to the office at least three days out of the week starting Sept. 5, and JPMorgan CEO and Chairman Jamie Dimon has been telling the bank’s senior managers to increase the mandatory in-person days from three days a week to five.
Nicholas Rizzi can be reached at nrizzi@commercialobserver.com.
