David Solomon did address the concerns made by first-year junior analysts which became public last week, with junior-level employees reporting 95 hour work weeks.
The Chief Executive of Goldman Sachs, David Solomon, has spoken out after employees raised internal issues within the company, which they stated were “abusive” and “inhumane”.
According to an internal survey which was carried out amongst the Investment Banking Division, first year analysts at the firm stated that, during that week, they had worked an average of 105 hours. In addition, the respondents reported working 98 hours a week on average throughout January 2021.
This led to a steep decline in mental and physical wellbeing, workers only getting five hours of sleep on average per night and all workers surveyed reporting a negative impact on relationships with friends and family.
To this, Mr. Solomon stated it was “great that this group of analysts went to their management”. He added that the company wanted to cultivate “a workplace where people can share concerns freely” and stated that employees should “reach out to ask for help” if they face any issues.
Despite this, he also urged staff to “go an extra mile for [the] client, even when we feel that we’re reaching our limit”. Mr. Solomon expressed that this extra work “can really make a difference in [the company’s] performance”.
However, the CEO also pledged to address the concerns of workers by instating the “Saturday rule” which states that junior staff should not be expected in the office from 9pm on Friday until 9am on Sunday.
In addition, Mr. Solomon outlined the company’s plan to accelerate plans to hire more junior staff across the investment banking division, in which the survey was conducted, as well as transferring employees to departments which are especially busy. It was also reported that workloads would be reduced by automating some tasks normally delegated to junior staff.
This response only targets one of the recommendations analysts made in the report to improve their work-life balance. Other points mentioned, which Mr. Solomon did not address, included setting an 80 hour work week cap, scheduling client meetings requiring materials at least a week in advance and prohibiting last-minute additions when it comes to these meetings.
Monica Sharma is an English Literature graduate from the University of Warwick. As Editor for HRreview, her particular interests in HR include issues concerning diversity, employment law and wellbeing in the workplace. Alongside this, she has written for student publications in both England and Canada. Monica has also presented her academic work concerning the relationship between legal systems, sexual harassment and racism at a university conference at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.
