Can bankers really work from home?

27 March 2007

2 minute read

Has the notion of working from home (as opposed simply to taking your work home) finally become acceptable in the City?

Published earlier this month, the Sunday Times list of the '100 Best Companies to Work For' indicated this may be the case. According to the paper, 48.1% of Morgan Stanley's employees now work from home for up to half a day a week.

The question is, who are they? And more particularly, do they include the likes of traders and corporate financiers or is home work the prerogative of admin staff? Morgan Stanley was unable to elucidate.

One commodities trader (not at Morgan Stanley) says working from home remains rarer than the Sunday Times stats would have us believe. "I've certainly never seen anyone in a front-office position being able to achieve that. It is just not something that you come across. It doesn't look great, does it?" he ranted when we broached the subject.

Attitudes to how people work are certainly changing - in accounting firms. KPMG, for example, is piloting a system of 'annualised days' in its corporate financial transactions division. The system will allow people to agree to work a set number of hours a day. If they work longer than that during a deal, they'll be able to work fewer hours subsequently.

Pars Purewal, UK investment and real estate management leader at PricewaterhouseCoopers, says plenty of staff at the firm now work the odd day at home - and they're not all in admin. "Some executives just accumulate a pile of stuff, take it home and get it done," he says.

Banks may at least be catching on. Lehman Brothers is sponsoring a conference on the subject of working flexibly in London on May 22.

AUTHORAnonymous

Insider Comment

Ja
Javier
4 April 2007
I work in a finance decision support role in one of the biggest UK multinationals. I have been working from home one or two days a week for the last two years and find it tremendously effective.
The three to four days I am in the office I maximise the "face" time with meetings and workshops. The days I work from home, I focus in catching up to speed with self-work, reading, occasional conference calls, etc. It has had no impact in my career development and I have been able to replace commuting time and "lost office time" with quality time with the family.
Reply
LM
LMD
2 April 2007
Having been both a sell side and buy side equity analyst I think working from home is absolutely perfect for both employee and employer. You tend to work longer hours, and with less distractions, and as long as you are set up with your calls going to your home and your Bloomberg and other apps all the same as in the office, it is perfect. I think it is rather easy to work from home even two days a week very comfortably and without detracting from efficiency, possibly enhancing it.
Reply
Wh
Whoever
1 April 2007
Working from home - don't you lose idea sharing with your colleagues?
Reply
Ez
Ezra
30 March 2007
Yeah, but the outsourcing argument has been around for a while. The reason we haven't seen much outsourcing is that top quality people would much prefer to work in London/NY than in Mumbai. I don't see that changing substantially, particularly given the heavens-and-earth disparity between salaries in London and Mumbai.
Reply
Cl
Claudia
29 March 2007
I work for one of the large Global Custodians here in London and we have several people in front office roles (Relationship Management and Sales Roles) that work either part-time (3 or 4 day week) or from home on one or two days a week.
This works where the individuals are responsible and flexible enough and are able to organize their workload in a suitable manner. Technology permits to do most tasks from anywhere, and employees that work autonomously only need to be in the office for meetings with clients, colleagues and team meetings.
Reply