In the past few months, Wall Street’s largest banks have been scrutinized for their long-standing culture of forcing junior employees to work long hours.
The death of a 35-year-old Bank of America associate, Leo Lukenas III, sparked a massive outcry as he was reportedly pounding his keyboard and going to meetings for over 100 hours per week.
The autopsy revealed that Lukenas died from “acute coronary artery thrombus.” His death occurred while he was working on a massive $2 billion deal involving UMB Financial in the acquisition of a company called Heartland Financial. The medical examiner did not directly tie his death to any work-related stress (but didn’t rule it out either).
JP Morgan Institutes Cap on Work Hours for Young Bankers
In response to the backlash, several institutions including JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America decided to implement new measures aimed at improving workers’ work-life balance in the high-pressure environment of investment banking.
As part of this effort, the number of hours that junior employees will work per week will reportedly be capped at 80 in the case of JP Morgan Chase specifically. This is the first time that a major bank enforces this kind of rule and would mark a significant shift in the industry’s traditional practices.
The cap is equivalent to the New York state limit for hours worked by medical residents, providing a notable benchmark for the banking industry.
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Although some bankers may view this as an improvement, the reality is that their work week still doubles the time that they invest in this activity compared to the average American worker.
To put this into perspective, a sample 80-hour workweek for a young JPMorgan banker could consist of six days working from approximately 8:30 a.m. to 10 p.m., with short breaks for meals, or alternatively, 10 hours a day for seven straight days.
To put this into perspective, bankers would still have to clock in at around 8:00 a.m. and work until 10 p.m. with 1-hour breaks for six days straight in a regular workweek to reach the cap.
In the investment banking industry, workweeks of over 120 hours are not unfamiliar to new recruits, especially when they need to comply with deadlines and complete time-sensitive projects for their employers.
JP Morgan Offers “Pencils Off” Period Once a Month
JP Morgan has also extended other “benefits” to its investment bankers to help them disconnect from their frantic work pace including a “pencils off” period once every month starting at 6 p.m. on Friday and lasting until Saturday afternoon. They are also now enjoying protected holidays.
However, the bank is still allowed to make exceptions when they are working on “live deals” so the cap might not change much at all.
Bank of America has not been as drastic as JP Morgan Chase. Instead, they have implemented a time-tracking tool that provides additional transparency to junior bankers’ work schedules.
These workers now have to log their work hours and keep track of which deals have been assigned to them and who is responsible for overseeing their tasks. Their capacity to take in additional work is assessed on a scale from 1 to 4.
These changes were implemented right after a story from the Wall Street Journal came out stating that bankers at BofA were pressed by their superiors to lie to human resources about their work hours or risk their jobs.
Bank of America Has a History of Bankers’ Deaths
Other banks have not followed through with these changes. For example, Goldman Sachs only offers a “Protected Saturday” where bankers are allowed to stay off from work for 24 hours starting on Friday night.
However, Morgan Stanley does not offer this kind – or any other kind whatsoever – of time off to its employees.
Lukenas case is not the first where a young banker died during stressful work situations. In 2021, an analyst for Bank of America named Adnan Deumic died of cardiac arrest. He worked at the institution’s London office as a summer analyst and was reportedly in good health before the incident. Deumic was just 25 years old.
Meanwhile, in 2013, an intern at Bank of America named Moritz Erhardt also died after suffering an episode of epilepsy. Employees’ accounts commented that Erhardt had been working for three days straight without sleeping.
In 2021, junior bankers at Goldman Sachs protested their working conditions when the bank’s deal business was booming. Despite this, a person close to the bank indicated that Goldman doesn’t plan to change its policies in the near term but will continue to monitor juniors’ hours.
Junior Bankers at Goldman Complained of “Inhumane” Work Conditions in 2021
In 2021, a group of junior bankers at Goldman Sachs raised their voices to oppose the “inhumane” work conditions they had to endure as they worked over 100 hours a week and were allegedly mentally and verbally abused by their colleagues.
A slide show presented to the bank’s officials back then showed that the average junior banker only slept 3 hours a day on average and went to bed at 3 a.m.
“The sleep deprivation, the treatment by senior bankers, the mental and physical stress … I’ve been through foster care and this is arguably worse,” one of the surveyed bankers highlighted back then.
Meanwhile, all of the surveyed individuals indicated that both their physical and mental health declined severely after they took the job at Goldman.
“We recognise that our people are very busy, because business is strong and volumes are at historic levels. A year into Covid people are understandably quite stretched, and that’s why we are listening to their concerns and taking multiple steps to address them,” the bank acknowledged at the time.
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However, insiders claim that no meaningful changes have been implemented to the bank’s practices on this subject.
The potential for burnout, stress-related illnesses, and long-term health complications has become a significant concern for both employees and industry observers.
The investment banking sector has always been known for its demanding work culture with thousands of young people starting entry-level jobs each year, primarily attracted by its reputation for turning grinders into millionaires.
However, attitudes toward work-life balance are evolving, particularly among younger generations entering the workforce. However, Gen Z employees have been particularly vocal about their expectations for better working conditions and more reasonable hours.
Banks Struggle to Find the Right Balance
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon acknowledged the importance of addressing these issues and reflected on “what can we [JPMorgan Chase] learn from” Lukenas’s death. Despite these new measures, some industry insiders remain skeptical about their effectiveness. The exemption for live deals at JPMorgan, for instance, highlights the ongoing challenge that banks face to truly cap the number of hours that employees work in an industry driven by client demands and time-sensitive projects.
The ongoing debate about work hours poses a fresh challenge to Wall Street titans as they keep aiming to recruit and retain young talent. Banks are increasingly being forced to find a better balance between their traditional high-pressure culture and the evolving and seemingly more demanding expectations of newer generations.
The responses to these new measures have been mixed across the industry. While some see them as necessary steps towards improving employee well-being others worry about their potential impact on productivity and service quality.
Ultimately, the challenge for investment banks will be to find a balance that protects employees’ well-being while maintaining the high levels of performance that have been considered hallmarks of the industry for decades.