(Reuters) – Jefferies Financial Group would rather have its staff back at office working together than in “lonely home silos” to get the most out of the final quarter of the year, Chief Executive Officer Richard Handler said in a letter on Thursday.
“As long as Covid continues to be manageable, we need everyone back in our offices on a consistent basis so we can truly maximize our fourth and final quarter and the future that is ahead,” Handler said.
“Let’s all just appreciate that together, rather than in lonely home silos, we can do our best to close out the year the right way,” he added.
Handler said employees at the investment bank were also free to work in a hybrid format when needed.
Wall Street’s biggest financial firms have been among the most proactive in initiating return to office, however, the plans were derailed by the outbreak of the highly contagious Omicron variant of the coronavirus earlier this year.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc called its employees back to office full time in June last year, Morgan Stanley and JPMorgan are mostly back too, while Citigroup has a hybrid arrangement.
Goldman Sachs will lift pandemic-era protocols effective Sept. 6, allowing employees to enter its Americas offices regardless of vaccination status, except in New York City and Lima, an internal memo reviewed by Reuters showed this week.
Morgan Stanley also informed its New York metropolitan staff in a memo last week it will discontinue all COVID testing and monitoring requirements from Sept. 5.
(Reporting by Noor Zainab Hussain in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)
