Perella Weinberg Targets Flexibility in Return to Office Plans
Perella Weinberg Targets Flexibility in Return to Office Plans
(Bloomberg) -- Perella Weinberg Partners is targeting a more flexible model for staff returning to the office, as Wall Street banks chart different paths in how they navigate work in a post-pandemic world.
“Each firm has its own cadence and we don’t feel like we have to put the hammer down and say everyone come in tomorrow,” the bank’s chief executive officer and founder Peter Weinberg said in an interview on Bloomberg TV. Perella, which went public Friday after merging with a blank-check company, expects staff to be “pretty much back” by Labor Day in September, he said, adding that working styles won’t be the same as they were pre-pandemic and that they’ll be more remote working.
Perella’s plans stand in contrast to some Wall Street institutions which have taken a more hardline approach in bringing people back to work. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. has required almost all U.S. employees to report to their desks while JPMorgan Chase & Co. is asking most of its U.S. workers to start regular office schedules July 6. Citigroup Inc., on the other hand, is planning next month to open its offices in New York City’s Tribeca neighborhood to as much as 30% of its broader staff. Synchrony Financial has told workers they can’t come back to the office five days a week.
“Goldman Sachs is doing what they’re doing,” Weinberg said. “I’m sure it’s been very well considered and I think that suits them -- but I don’t think it’s one size fits all really.”
Perella’s business fared well during the pandemic as the bank adapted to the working from home environment, according to Weinberg. The bank will now design the “workplace of the future,” whose hallmark will be flexibility, Andrew Bednar, the bank’s co-president and a partner, said.
“In our discussions with all of our teams, people are looking for flexibility,” Bednar said. “We want people to have the ability to achieve their full potential at the office as well as outside of the office.”
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