Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon isn’t a fan of remote work.
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Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said 65% of its workers are back in the office five days a week.
He told CNBC it’s especially important for young workers in their 20s to get into the office.
There’s an ongoing debate around bringing the workforce back to the office after two years of remote work.
Wall Street titan Goldman Sachs has managed to get about two-thirds of its staff back to the office five days a week, David Solomon, the CEO of the bank, told CNBC on Tuesday.
“Before the pandemic, about 75% of our people were in the office on any given day of the week. Today, it’s about 65%, so we’re kind of operating close to the way we were,” Solomon told CNBC, according to a transcript from the broadcaster.
Solomon was speaking to the network days after he confirmed a restructuring during the bank’s latest earnings call, where it also reported a 44% slump in third-quarter profit. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday the bank intends to merge its investment banking and trading divisions while the asset and wealth management divisions would also be combined.
The CEO isn’t a fan of remote work that companies were forced into implementing, during the pandemic. In 2021, he told a conference the practice was “an aberration that we are going to correct as quickly as possible,” Bloomberg reported. “This is not ideal for us and it’s not a new normal,” he said at the time.
On Tuesday, he told CNBC it’s especially important for young workers in their 20s to get into the office. “We have an organization where 50% of the people are in their 20s. They come to Goldman Sachs to learn, to meet people, to interact,” he said.
However, Solomon did indicate that he wasn’t against flexibility for workers, particularly if they have more responsibilities, like kids.
“I don’t want rules. I want a culture where we show up, serve our clients. We work hard. We mentor our people, we teach our people, we strive for excellence,” he told CNBC.
Corporate America is split over remote work
Solomon’s comments came amid a debate ongoing in corporate America around bringing the workforce back to the office, after more than two years of pandemic-induced remote work.
Some corporate leaders have been actively working to bring the employees working remotely, back to the office.
Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz said in June he was doing “everything” he could to get staff to return to the office. Tesla CEO Elon Musk issued an ultimatum to executive staff in May, telling them to return to the office, or quit.
Overall, employees are still not coming back to the office in full force. Office occupancy rate in the US was 49% as of October 17, according to data from Kastle Systems, an office security firm. That’s the highest rate since the pandemic started, but still far from an almost 100% attendance in early March 2020 before the pandemic, the data indicated.
The situation may change, however, as the economic outlook darkens.
Real-estate tycoon Stephen Ross told Bloomberg in June, employees might just return to the office due to job security fears, if the US enters a recession.