Idea of Work-Life Balance Hits Wall Street

Goldman Sachs Headquarters, New York City (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This idea of work-life balance is now becoming one important factor in a person's life these days. For what would you do with your tons of money, when nobody is around you anymore to share it with? Or you are no longer healthy to at least enjoy it yourself?


Just what is all the point there is after all the trouble?
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BY RACHEL L.SWARNS


The hard-working investment banker got out of bed at 11 a.m. First a leisurely cup of coffee and some Greek yogurt. Then after a run, he and three friends spent the afternoon watching college basketball on television.

The junior banker, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized by his employer to talk to a reporter, was savoring a rarity: a Saturday off.

“It’s weird waking up, saying, ‘What do I do with my time now?’” he said.

In recent months, some of the biggest banks on Wall Street have upended tradition by urging their junior bankers to take weekend days off.

In January, Bank of America Merrill Lynch told its junior bankers to take four weekend days off every month. Credit Suisse and Citigroup have urged their analysts and associates not to work on Saturdays. Last year, Goldman Sachs recommended that its analysts take weekend off whenever possible, and JPMorgan Chase announced an initiative to ensure that young staff members would have one “protected weekend” every month.

“We want them to be challenged, but also to operate at a pace where they’re going to stay here and learn important skills that are going to stick,” said David Solomon, at Goldman Sachs. “This is a marathon, not a sprint.”

Some may view the schedule change for overworked junior bankers as insignificant. But in an industry in which grueling schedules are embraced as a badge of honor, it reflects a significant shift in corporate culture.

The move to rethink workloads accelerated last summer when a 21-year-old intern at Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s London office died after an epileptic seizure. Reports suggested that he had worked three nights in a row.

The change also reflects the shifting realities: Wall Street is no longer the inevitable first choice finance graduates, some of whom are drawn to technology firms that often offer flexibility at work and big paychecks.

Sonia Marciano, a professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, said her students expected more than big bonuses. “My students, men and women, talk much more openly about an expectation of work-life balance,” said Ms. Marciano, who has been teaching for 20 years. “It’s a shift that seems pretty real and substantial.”

The junior banker who spent the recent Saturday with friends, said that in his first year on Wall Street, he worked all but a few weekend days. His parents stopped hoping that he would answer the phone. He lost touch with friends and struggled to find time to exercise. “The toll that it takes on you as a person, it’s overwhelming,” he said.

He still works through the weekend when a big deal is imminent and responds to calls and emails when he is out of the office.

But on that recent Saturday, he watched college basketball without his BlackBerry beeping. Later, he and his friends went out for burgers and a night of partying. “A chance to recharge,” he said.

He arrived home at 5 a.m., bleary-eyed and ready for a few hours of sleep. But just a few. It was Sunday, and time to get back to work.


Taken from TODAY Saturday Edition, The New York Times International Weekly, April 5, 2014

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Work, a Gender Bias Among Leaders

English: London Business School logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If brokerage is more apt to be for men, then modelling and product promotion is undoubtedly for women...
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BY PHYLLIS KORKKI


Who really makes the changes in an organization? It’s not always the people with the highest executive titles. A growing body of research has pointed to the importance of informal leaders known to researchers as “brokers,” who have the gift of connecting employees in productive new ways.

New research by Raina A. Brands of the London Business School and Martin Kilduff of University College London has uncovered a bias surrounding brokerage roles.

Professor Brands and Professor Kilduff examined what are known as “friendship networks” within organizations. In this sense, friends are the people you turn to for help, advice and information, whether or not they are in your work group. Simply put, you like and trust them, Professor Brands says. It’s within these friendship networks that much of an organization’s work gets done, Professor Brands says.

In a study of two separate groups – employees of an electronic-components distributor and a cohort of M.B.A. students – she and professor Kilduff identified brokers based on the high level of connectivity they displayed. They also identified the people who were perceived by their colleagues to be brokers. (Perceived brokers are not always actual brokers.)

Researchers asked members to evaluate their colleagues, including the actual and perceived brokers. This is where gender differences emerged. The researchers found that people tended to ignore the activities of female brokers and to exaggerate how much men served as brokers. If women were recognized as brokers, they were perceived more negatively.

“They incurred reputational penalties,” Professor Brands says.

“They were seen as more competent, but less warm.” Other research, she says, has shown that men who take on brokerage roles tend to receive benefits in the form of compensation and promotions, whereas female brokers’ careers are negatively affected.

Professor Brands and Professor Kilduff also analyzed the performance of the brokers’ teams. They found that women who were thought by their teams to be brokers tended to perform well individually, but at the expense of their overall team’s performance.

The professors noted that men are traditionally defined by words like aggressive, forceful, independent and decisive. Women, on the other hand, are stereotypically expected to be kind, helpful, and sympathetic and concerned about others.

Women are thought to excel in the social realm – so you would think that they would be seen as good work brokers, the researchers said. But “despite the widespread notion of women as social specialist, perceptions of the network position of women will be distorted because of the expectation that brokerage is man’s work,” they wrote.

Much of this distortion may be below the level of conscious awareness, Professor Brands says, and simply bringing it to employees’ attention could help minimize the reputational bias that women incur at work.


Taken from The New York Times International Weekly, TODAY Saturday Edition, April 26, 2014

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British Airways staff agree to work for free

In dire situation…

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Posted: 26 June 2009 0135 hrs

British Airways

LONDON: Struggling British Airways on Thursday said 800 staff had agreed to unpaid work and thousands more to pay cuts, helping the group save up to 10 million pounds (11.7 million euros, 16.3 million dollars).

After diving into a financial loss, the airline last month asked staff to work for free, while promising that chief executive Willie Walsh and BA's finance director Keith Williams would forgo their July salaries.

"This is a fantastic first response" to BA's cost-cutting programme, Walsh said in a statement on Thursday.

"I want to thank everyone who has volunteered to help us pull through this difficult period. This response clearly shows the significant difference individuals can make."

The world's leading commercial airlines are facing a major cash squeeze as the global economic slump crushes demand for plane tickets.

BA last month reported an annual loss of 375 million pounds, also blamed on high fuel costs. The airline has cut 2,500 jobs worldwide over the past year.

On Thursday, a BA spokesman told AFP: "800 (have) opted to work for free" for up to a month.

The airline added in a statement: "Nearly 7,000 British Airways staff have taken an early opportunity to apply for voluntary pay cuts in support of the airline's cost reduction programme.

"Of the 40,000-strong workforce, 6,940 employees had volunteered for unpaid leave, part-time working or unpaid work... Their actions will save the company up to 10 million pounds."

BA's announcement came shortly before the end of stock market trading. The airline's share price closed up 1.04 percent at 126.60 pence on London's FTSE 100 index, which ended Thursday down 0.64 percent at 4,252.57 points.

Staff who have offered to work unpaid will still receive shift allowances and other payments, although they will forego their basic pay.

However Mick Rix, representing the GMB union, hit out at BA for releasing data on pay cuts while negotiations were ongoing.

"I find it disgusting that the company can make the announcement today," said Rix.

"We are locked into hard negotiations on making significant financial savings but BA seems only interested in making headlines rather than reaching an acceptable deal."

Last week, union leaders urged British Airways pilots to accept shares in the company in return for a pay cut.

Under the deal agreed with British Airways, pilots will see their annual pay cut by 2.61 percent and most jobs safeguarded.

The pilots' pay cut would generate 16 million pounds of annual savings, while pilots would also have to increase their working hours to help save another 10 million pounds annually.

In return, pilots would in two years' time be eligible to receive a proportion of BA shares worth a total of 13 million pounds if company targets are met. The pilots will not however be able to sell the shares until June, 2014.

- AFP

From ChannelNewsAsia.com; see the source article here.

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UK lawmakers slammed over expenses secrecy

June 18, 2009 -- Updated 1249 GMT (2049 HKT)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• UK lawmakers publish report on their expenses claims but some is blacked out
  
• Redaction prompts criticism from anti-secrecy campaigners
  
• Reports on expenses leaked to newspaper have caused public outcry
  

UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been rocked by numerous resignations recently.

LONDON, England (CNN) -- Anti-secrecy campaigners have criticized a decision by UK lawmakers to censor a report on their expenses claims, some of which was leaked earlier amid huge public outcry.

The online publication on Thursday is the result of a newspaper filing a freedom of information request to see the claims by MPs, but some of the information is blacked out.

The redaction prompted criticism from campaigners seeking transparency. "A great deal of information has been censored so today's move will do nothing to restore public trust -- it looks like a cover-up," Katherine Gundersen of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, told CNN.

"Far from drawing a line under the episode this will fuel further public anger."

Thursday's official release was also anti-climatic because the Daily Telegraph has been printing the expenses claims over the past month after obtaining a leaked copy.

The series of reports by the Telegraph created a scandal by revealing that many lawmakers had claimed excessively or bent the rules. The reports forced the government to release the claims Thursday instead of in July, as originally planned.

Controversial claims detailed by the newspaper included thousands of dollars' worth of interest on a mortgage that had already been paid, money spent to clean a moat on a country estate, and more than $1,000 spent on a small house for ducks.

Some lawmakers claimed the maximum monthly allowance for food; one claimed for dog food; one claimed for Christmas decorations; and another claimed nearly $5,000 for an in-home theater system.

More than a dozen MPs caught up in the scandal have promised to step down in the next election. It also has forced Prime Minister Gordon Brown to reshuffle his Cabinet while polls show popular support for the ruling Labour Party at historic lows.

The latest casualty came Wednesday night with the resignation of Kitty Ussher, a Member of Parliament who was also a Treasury minister. Her office in the northern England city of Burnley confirmed that she had handed Brown her resignation.

Ussher, considered a rising star in Labour, resigned after the Telegraph revealed that she designated her constituency home as her main residence for just one month in 2007 to avoid paying around $30,000 in capital gains tax.

Claims for allowances for second homes -- which most lawmakers have because they need to be in London for parliamentary business -- have been a big point of controversy for other lawmakers, too.

The Telegraph exposed how some lawmakers, like Ussher, "flipped" the designation of their main and second homes to avoid taxes or make a big allowance claims.

Many lawmakers defended their claims as being within the rules. But even where that was the case, the public criticized lawmakers for greed and for taking advantage.

The expenses cover lawmakers' claims from 2004 to 2008. More than 1 million documents and receipts were scanned electronically over the past year to make them available online, according to Parliament's Web site.

Unlike the information revealed by the Telegraph, the online documents are redacted, with key details blocked from view. Parliament said the edits were made to protect the security and privacy of lawmakers, their staff and third parties.

Among the details blacked out are the addresses of lawmakers' second homes. That makes it impossible to use the documents to find out whether lawmakers flipped homes or made other suspicious claims on those homes.

Deputy News Editor Ben Leapman of The Sunday Telegraph lodged his freedom of information request in January 2005 in order to see the receipts of lawmakers' second home spending, he has said.

From CNN.com; see the source article here.

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70-80 good price for oil: French economy minister

AFP - Sunday, May 10

RIYADH (AFP) - - French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde said Saturday that it would be good if oil prices settled at between 70 and 80 dollars a barrel.

"We want less volatility, more predictability," Lagarde said ahead of talks on Sunday with oil giant Saudi Arabia's petroleum minister Ali Naimi.

"Most people would agree that anywhere between 70 and 80 dollars would be good," she said.

Lagarde was on a 24 hour visit to the Saudi capital for discussions on a range of bilateral economic issues, including promoting France's high-speed rail expertise for the multi-billion-dollar Mecca-Medina rail project, and fashioning cooperation on nuclear power technology.

Lagarde said that Saudi King Abdullah and French President Nicolas Sarkozy had earlier agreed to seek mechanisms to stabilize oil prices, after last year's climb to nearly 150 dollars a barrel and subsequent plunge to just 30 dollars.

However, she said, the possible mechanisms for that still need to be explored.

Oil prices topped 58 dollars a barrel in New York trading Friday, the highest since mid-November.

Lagarde, who will meet King Abdullah and other top economic officials Sunday, said she will also encourage Saudi Arabia to follow up on its pledge to contribute to the expanded capital of the IMF.

This follows the G20 agreement in London at the beginning of April to triple the IMF's funds to 750 billion dollars.

"We all have to contribute more," she said, noting that most of the G20 members had yet to confirm their contributions.

"In London all of us, including the Saudis, signed a commitment, so we have to deliver."

Lagarde said she would also discuss with her Saudi counterparts updating the French-Saudi tax treaty to address issues that had arisen since the treaty was first signed some 20 years ago.

From Yahoo! News; see the source article here.

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