The financial sector is considered to be one of the most stressful industries for workers. The pressure to achieve consistently convincing results affects the work-life balance of bankers by causing them to work long days.
A group of junior analysts working at large investment bank Goldman Sachs recently raised concerns about the excessive workload, which caught the attention of the major financial media.
Management has responded by promising stricter enforcement of the existing ban on having junior bankers work on Saturdays, but also, paradoxically, by asking staff to “go the extra mile for our client, even when we feel we are reaching. our limits ”.
This is not the first time that long working hours in the finance industry have made headlines. In 2013, the tragic disappearance of Moritz Erhardt, a 21-year-old intern from the City of London who died after working three days without sleeping, highlighted grueling working hours at investment banks and aroused media criticism.
16 million races analyzed
In reaction, a few months after this shock, most investment banks set up “protected weekends” policies which aimed to improve the work-life balance of junior bankers by guaranteeing them free time during weekends, especially Saturdays. Some Swiss banks have also followed suit..
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However, as we explain in a recent research articleHowever, it is not certain that these policies improve the work-life balance of junior bankers. This is why we decided to study the evolution of the culture of overwork in banks by assessing how these policies have affected the working hours of bankers, and whether they meet their good intentions by encouraging junior bankers to do so. reduce.
To do this, we analyzed information from 16 million cab rides from ten major investment banks in New York and their immediate surroundings to residential destinations. They used records of more than one billion yellow cab rides released by the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission, including GPS coordinates of pick-up and drop-off locations and time stamps of supports that are available for each race from January 2009 to June 2016.
Persistent culture
This analysis, conducted with my ex-doctoral colleague from Aalto University School of Business (Finland), shows that when banks implemented work policies without Saturday, it caused employees to work late at night in week to compensate. These results are most marked during the summer internship weeks, when investment banks employ large numbers of students eager to prove themselves by working hard.
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Thus, the negative effects of the policy may have been more pronounced for the most vulnerable employees, whom the policies were meant to protect. This finding is indicative of the nature of banking industry culture and the extent to which banks can change it by introducing new policies, showing that even well-intentioned policies can have unintended consequences. In addition, it is a testament to the persistence of the culture of long working days in highly skilled professions, particularly in finance.
Our results therefore suggest that it is difficult to change the culture of banks by decree, especially when the stakes for junior employees and their bosses are high. Even if longer days generate only a modest increase in team productivity, the high stakes can lead bosses to push their subordinates to work harder …
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