• Wall Street jobs pay well, but work-from-home opportunities tend to be slim.
• JPMorgan is considering whether to call all its employees back to the office full time.
• Check out the RTO policies at the biggest financial firms like JPMorgan, Blackstone, and Citadel. 

Every day it seems as if another company is calling its workers back to the office five days a week. Amazon's office staff are back to their seats Monday through Friday, starting this month, as are the employees of telecom giant AT&T. JPMorgan Chase is also considering returning to a five-day workweek, according to Bloomberg News. 

Investment banks like Goldman Sachs and hedge funds like Citadel have been at the forefront of efforts to get employees working in the same place since the pandemic kicked off the work-from-home phenomenon. Goldman's CEO David Solomon famously blasted the work-from-home phenomenon as an "aberration" before most Americans were even vaccinated. Citadel's Ken Griffin said he feared that work-from-home was harming the nation and wished President Joe Biden would do something about it. 

So, which Wall Street firms are still letting employees work from home at least part of the time?  Here is our list of back-to-work mandates at the largest financial services companies.

Goldman Sachs 

Goldman Sachs started calling workers back in June 2021 and was initially once of the few financial firms to buck to remote work trend and demand pretty much everyone return to the office five days a week. 

Goldman started by welcoming employees back with ice cream and food trucks to get there. By 2022, it was actively monitoring attendance via ID badge swipes. In 2023, it cracked down on laggards, reminding staffers that the 5-days-a-week policy is for everyone — even during the dog days of summer. 

JPMorgan 

JPMorgan started calling workers back in July 2021 on a rolling basis and by 2022, had developed a hybrid work policy that was supposed to result in just 50% of the bank's employees returning to the office five days a week, including people who work in bank branches or in investment-banking jobs like sales and trading.

By April 2022, Dimon said that 40% of the bank's employees, which then numbered about 270,000, would be permitted to work a few days at home, while about 10% could work from home full time. Everyone else was expected to be in the office five days a week.

The next April, Dimon called all of the bank's managing directors back to the office five days a week, whether they worked in demanding revenue-producing jobs or led back-office departments like technology and compliance. Everyone else must be in at least three days a week. 

Like Goldman, JPMorgan has also been tracking attendance through ID badge swipes, data that it collects into a dashboard that can churn out reports for managers and other senior leaders.    

A spokesman for JPMorgan, which reported having 316,043 workers at the end of September, declined to comment on Bloomberg's reporting that it may soon revert to a five-day-a-week schedule for everyone. He said that roughly 70% of the bank's employees were already back in the office five days a week, while everyone else was back three or four days a week.

Citigroup 

Citi's CEO Jane Fraser is one of the few Wall Street CEOs who has not participated in the work-from-home bashing. Instead, she's embraced a hybrid work policy that currently allows most employees to work three days from the office and two days at home, depending on the job. Bank branch employees, for example, are still required to go in five days a week. 

Fraser has also not shied away from reminding the troops that working from home is a privilege, not a right. At the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in 2023, she said that the bank was calling workers with productivity issues back to their desks. 

"We do measure productivity very carefully," she said, according to Bloomberg. "You can see how productive someone is or isn't, and if they're not being productive we bring them back to the office, or back to the site, and we give them the coaching they need until they bring the productivity back up again."

A spokeswoman for the bank said Citi is "committed to our hybrid work model. She said that the majority of employees still work on a hybrid schedule, or at least three days in the office and up to two days remotely.

Bank of America 

Bank of America's policy has morphed over time. In early 2022, it encouraged employees to work from the office more often but left room for flexibility at the manager's discretion. By May of that year, investment banking employees at all levels were being ordered to return to the office between four and five days a week.

Since 2022, Bank of America has required employees who are client-facing, like bankers and traders, to be in the office or meeting with clients five days a week. Everyone else must be in the office three days a week. A BofA spokesman confirmed that the policy established in 2022 remains in place.  

Early last year, the bank issued "letters of education" to employees who were in violation of the bank's return-to-office policies, BI reported. "Failure to follow the workplace excellence expectations applicable to your role within two weeks of the date of this notification may result in further disciplinary action," one of these letters said.

Morgan Stanley 

Morgan Stanley's new CEO Ted Pick has not commented publicly on the company's remote work policy since taking the role in January 2024. His predecessor, James Gorman, however, was a big proponent of working from the office, telling Bloomberg in 2023 that working from home is "not a choice." 

"They don't get to choose their compensation, they don't get to choose their promotion, they don't get to choose to stay home five days a week," Gorman said in an interview in Davos. 

That said, Morgan Stanley has allowed for some remote work, depending on the job. "At Morgan Stanley, we're kind of business unit by business unit. It's three or four days in the office," Gorman said at the time.

BlackRock

BlackRock's employees have been making use of its new Hudson Yards headquarters in New York City. 

The world's largest asset manager has required its employees to work in the office four days a week starting in September 2023, with the option to work from home one day a week, BI previously reported.   

Citadel 

Citadel's Griffin is a true believer that teams work better and faster when they're in the same room. His $66 billion hedge fund and his market maker, Citadel Securities,  have been full time in the office since June 2021.  

"We make so much money because our competition plays in their pajamas – and that's just been a home run for us," Griffin told Goldman partner Raj Mahajan in an interview for the bank's Talks at GS series in June 2023. 

Blackstone 

Blackstone employees have been back in the office five days a week since June 2021. 

To make its staff more comfortable with the initial return to office, Blackstone spent $20 million on Covid safety and specific precautions, a source told BI in 2021, including covering cab fares for employees' commute.

Bridgewater

Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund, has kept to a flexible schedule. Since September 2021, the fund has required staff to be in the office a minimum of two days a week. 

 Managers and department heads, however, can require additional days in the office, according to the firm's website. On days employees are in, the firm focuses on taking "advantage of our shared location," it reads. Department heads and managers can require additional days onsite depending on the employee's role and business needs.

Millennium 

Izzy Englander's Millennium experimented with a hybrid working arrangement in 2021. At that time, the firm required its employees to work in the office at least three days a week.

Since then, most employees have been in the office 5 days a week, according to a person familiar with the firm. 

• JPMorgan is gearing up to call its workers back to the office five days a week, Bloomberg reported.
• The bank's CEO, Jamie Dimon, has been an outspoken critic of remote work.
• See how the bank's return-to-work policies have changed over the years.

JPMorgan Chase may soon call all its workers back to the office, which would make it the latest large finance company to return to pre-pandemic working conditions.

Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday that America's biggest bank by assets was developing a new policy that could eliminate remote work. The policy, which has not been announced and is subject to change, would follow Amazon's decision to call its workers back to the office five days a week starting this month.

A spokesman for JPMorgan, which reported having 316,043 workers at the end of September, declined to comment on the company's plans. But he said that roughly 70% of the bank's employees were already back in the office five days a week, while everyone else was back three or four days a week.

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has been an outspoken critic of remote work, and the company has been calling people back to the office for several years now.

In September, during a discussion with The Atlantic, Dimon criticized the federal government's remote-work policies, saying he'd "make Washington, DC, go back to work."

"I can't believe, when I come down here, the empty buildings. The people who work for you not going to the office," Dimon said, adding: "That bothers me. I don't allow that."

Here's a timeline of JPMorgan's work-from-home policies.

July 2021: JPMorgan started calling workers back to the office on a rolling basis, focusing on people who worked in bank branches or in investment-banking jobs like sales and trading.

April 2022: Dimon said in a letter to shareholders that 40% of the bank's employees, which then numbered about 270,000, would be permitted to work a few days at home, while about 10% could work from home full time. Everyone else was expected to be in the office five days a week.

April 2023: Dimon called all of the bank's managing directors back to the office five days a week, whether they worked in demanding revenue-producing jobs or led back-office departments like technology and compliance.

January 2025: Bloomberg reported that JPMorgan was working on a policy that could call all its workers back to the office five days a week.

• Donald Trump could introduce sweeping changes to Wall Street when he takes office on January 20.
• His policies are expected to boost core investment-banking businesses, like M&A and lending.
• He may also spur competition from financial technology startups and roll back consumer protections.

Donald Trump is already signaling his plans for Wall Street through his appointments to federal agencies like the Federal Trade Commission, which aims to promote commerce and protect consumers. He wants to replace Lina Khan, the agency's commissioner, with Andrew Ferguson, who is expected to be less aggressive in blocking large mergers.

According to data from the London Stock Exchange Group, 2024 saw more than $3 trillion in mergers and acquisitions volumes globally. While it was slightly up from the year prior, it was consistent with the malaise that has gripped Wall Street amid the high interest rates and dealmaking slowdown of the post-COVID years.

But, with the second Trump administration set to take effect come Inauguration Day on January 20, investment bankers and private-equity financiers are gearing up for what could be a friendlier dealmaking environment. In an interview following the election with CNBC in November, Jeffrey Solomon, the president of financial firm TD Cowen, said he predicted that the "regulatory environment will be much more conducive to economic growth."

"There will be lighter and targeted regulation," he told the business news outlet, expressing a view that many in the financial-services industry share, whether or not they express those views aloud.

With Trump's historically less hawkish approach to regulation and pronouncements to spur economic activity and tame inflation, here are five ways his policies could shape Wall Street in 2025 and in the years to come.

Bank lending

Trump is generally expected to reduce regulations for companies, including banks. One way he could do this is by rolling back the Biden administration's plans to enforce stricter capital requirements on banks, nicknamed "Basel III Endgame." Bank leaders, including JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, have vehemently opposed the latest proposed rules, saying they would require banks to hold on to far more capital than they needed to manage their risks. According to law firm Davis Polk, Trump could ease the capital restrictions, which could free up banks to put more of their capital to work via lending or other activities.

M&A

M&A is once again showing signs of life, thanks to the Fed's plans to lower the cost of borrowing.

A KPMG survey of 300 corporate and private-equity dealmakers released in December revealed a bullish outlook among those poised to engage in M&A transactions in the year ahead. In the online survey, 85% of respondents said they were eyeing more deals now than six months ago, and 79% said that the outcome of the presidential election would produce "an easier regulatory or anti-trust environment for M&A."

Trump is expected to turbocharge the dealmaking environment by replacing the current head of the Federal Trade Commission, Lina Khan, who has been aggressive in blocking big mergers, including a $24.6 billion tie-up of supermarket chains Kroger and Albertsons. Khan has also taken steps to break up tech giants Amazon and Meta.

Trump has selected Andrew Ferguson, one of the FTC's current commissioners, to replace Khan as the FTC's chair. Ferguson is expected to be more welcoming of large mergers, although he has vowed on Silicon Valley tech giants, especially those that stifle conservative voices. In a post on X, he said: "At the FTC, we will end Big Tech's vendetta against competition and free speech. We will make sure that America is the world's technological leader and the best place for innovators to bring new ideas to life."

Crypto and fintech

Trump embraced crypto on the campaign trail, becoming the first presidential candidate to accept campaign donations in cryptocurrency. Since being elected for a second term in the White House, he named venture capitalist David Sacks as the "AI & Crypto Czar." Sacks' job, according to Trump, will be to find ways to help crypto thrive, including by advising the White House on "a legal framework so the crypto industry has the clarity it has been asking for," according to a post on social media site Truth Social.

Trump's focus on crypto and AI has financial industry watchers betting a second Trump administration will prove a boon to fintechs, which could prove a mixed bag for established banks who have adopted new banking technologies to compete with the rise of payments and banking apps.

Davis Polk lawyers explained it this way in a December 19 report: "The focus on growth and innovation is likely to be centered around facilitating safe and sound fintech activities, making the path to achieving a bank charter for innovative firms more readily achievable and drawing clearer rules of the road for banking organizations to participate in a variety of crypto-asset-related and tokenization activities."

Consumer banking

Trump is expected to reduce regulations generally, including consumer protection efforts that have drawn opposition from Republican lawmakers. On December 12, the Biden administration finalized rules limiting what banks can charge consumers who spend more money than they have in their accounts, also known as overdraft fees. The rule drew a lawsuit from banking groups and the ire of Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the incoming chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

"Despite voters' clear message on Election Day, Director Chopra has advanced his agenda at a break-neck speed," Scott reportedly said at a December Senate Banking Committee hearing in reference to Rohit Chopra, head of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, or CFPB.

Some Trump supporters have called for sweeping changes to the CFPB, an Obama-era agency responsible for protecting consumers from unfair treatment by financial firms.

"Delete CFPB," Elon Musk wrote in November on X, his social media platform.

IPOs

Stock investors reacted enthusiastically to Trump's election, sending stocks to record levels until December when investors started harvesting gains. Continued stock-market optimism stands to boost IPO activity, which thawed out slightly in 2024 following several years of stagnation.

There were 214 IPOs filed in 2024, up 19% from the previous year, according to IPO tracker Renaissance Capital.

Whether the stock-market cheer continues, however, will depend on Trump's policies once he takes office on January 20. The president-elect is largely expected to take a pro-business stance, but he has also proposed taxing foreign imports at levels that threaten to slow the economy by raising the prices of consumer goods.

While tariffs don't automatically lead to rising prices, "adding tariffs at the scale being discussed would have inflation implications," said Rob Haworth, senior investment strategy director with US Bank Asset Management in a recent research report. Trump has proposed levying taxes of 10% on goods imported from China, and 25% tariffs on goods from neighbors Mexico and Canada.

• BI asked the largest US investment banks if they test for marijuana and other drugs.
• NY prohibits employers from testing many job seekers for marijuana.
• Drug testing on Wall Street is not dead, however. See the policies and exceptions here.

Laws and attitudes around drugs are swiftly shifting, which can create confusion for job seekers. Is medical marijuana OK to use at work if you have a prescription? What drugs can you be tested when applying for a new job?

In New York, the financial capital of the United States, recreational cannabis use is now legal for people over age 21, and testing job seekers for marijuana in the Empire State has been largely outlawed.

That doesn't mean that drug testing on Wall Street is dead, however. Indeed, many large banks have strict rules against using substances at work, including unsanctioned alcohol. And while NY-based employers are prohibited from testing most job seekers for marijuana, they can still test for other drugs and discipline workers for being impaired on the job by drugs, including cannabis.

BI reached out to six large banks, including JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, and Citi, to ask about their drug testing policies. We found that, for the most part, these employers no longer screen most job applicants for drugs of any kind.

That said, these banks still have the right to test for drugs, including marijuana, under certain circumstances, including when federal or state law requires it as a mandate of the position or when someone shows signs of being impaired on the job.

Bank of America reserves the right to screen for drugs when legally required, according terms and conditions of employment posted on its website. JPMorgan Chase, meanwhile, may require suppliers to test personnel who work with the bank for amphetamines, cocaine, opiates, and phencyclidine, according to documents posted on its website.

Like it or not, drugs have long been a mainstay of Wall Street culture. While cocaine has been largely replaced by softer uppers, like Adderall and Zyn, the intense demands of the finance industry can often lead to drug use, as Business Insider has previously reported.

See what we learned about drug testing for job seekers and current employees at Citi, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and more.

Bank of America

A spokesperson for the Charlotte, North Carolina-headquartered bank said the firm does not require new hires or current employees to test for drug use.

Documents posted on the company's website show that it may screen for drugs in select circumstances. One document, for example, says employees may be asked to "agree to undergo a screening for illegal drugs prior to or during my employment with Bank of America if requested or as legally required." A positive test may "render me ineligible for employment at Bank of America."

The drug policy posted on the bank's website says that the use or even possession of illicit drugs during work hours can lead to termination.

Citigroup

Citi also doesn't require drug testing as a condition of employment, a bank spokesperson said. This goes for both new hires and existing employees.

BI reported in 2019 that Citigroup was reevaluating its stance on testing job applicants for marijuana use. The bank also held high-level discussions among senior executives about how closely it should work with the cannabis industry or clients interested in doing cannabis deals.

Goldman Sachs

A spokesperson for Goldman Sachs told BI that the bank does not test new hires or current employees for marijuana or other substances.

Goldman's policy is a switch from 2019 when a Goldman spokesperson told BI the bank drug tests new hires, though the screening process did not include marijuana.

JPMorgan

A spokesperson for JPMorgan Chase declined to comment on the bank's drug-testing policies.

A 2021 document obtained by BI showed that JPMorgan may test its supplier's employees, at the supplier's expense, at a Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) certified site. This includes personnel who "work at a site of any JPMC and receive a JPMC identification access badge" or who have access to the bank's confidential information, networks or systems, or customer property, the document says.

Morgan Stanley

A Morgan Stanley spokesperson told BI that the bank does not test employees or new hires for any substances.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo does not require new hires or current employees to screen for marijuana or other drugs, a spokesperson told BI. "Drug testing is not part of our pre-employment eligibility review," the spokesperson wrote.

That said, Wells Fargo's online policy calls for a "drug-free workplace," including the improper use of legal substances. "All employees are required to perform their job duties unimpaired by illegal drugs, marijuana, alcohol, or the improper use of legal substances," the policy states, adding: "Employees are prohibited from working or reporting to work when impaired by alcohol or drugs."

• Bank of New York Mellon is a 240-year-old financial firm with $2.1 trillion in AUM.
• It also touches roughly 20% of investible assets around the globe through its various businesses.
• Here are the names of the 30 employees it just promoted to the top title of managing director.

Bank of New York Mellon Corp. on Wednesday promoted 30 employees to managing director, the bank's highest title below the C-suite. That's down from 44 managing director promotions last year as CEO Robin Vince seeks to transform the bank, including by setting a higher bar for rising in the ranks.

BNY is neither an investment bank nor a consumer bank, but it's one of the oldest and most important financial institutions on Wall Street. Founded by Alexander Hamilton 240 years ago, BNY is a custodian and administrator of $52.1 trillion for financial firms through its asset servicing business, clearance and collateral management, and other businesses. It also manages $333 billion in individual client assets through its wealth business and $2.1 trillion in assets through its investment and wealth management business segment.

Through its various commercial lines, including custody and treasury services, it touches roughly 20% of investible assets worldwide.

This year, 25% of the new class are from non-US locations, including locations the bank has targeted for growth, like Manchester, United Kingdom, Wroclaw, Poland, Dublin, Ireland, and India (both Chennai and Pune), according to a spokesperson.

Here are the list of names of BNY's newest MDs.

• Asset Servicing: Adam Watson, Fiona McNally, Ranjani Iyer
• BNY Wealth: Chad Johnsrud, Adam Innerst
• Chief Commercial Office: Christian Lewis, Paula Avraamides
• Clearance and Collateral Management: Parin Shah
• Credit Services: Shaf Hasan
• Engineering: Bhupendra Pudrohit, Christina Mackrell, Siva Hoskeri, Vikram Lalit
• Enterprise Transformation Office: Lauren Kozora
• Executive Office: Sarah Atkinson
• Finance: Jason Thomas, Jessica Casillo, Kimberly Perman, Sudipta Adhaya
• Growth Ventures: David Moss
• Markets: Ted Leveroni, Jeff McCormick
• Operations: Gerard O'Keefe, Janet Menezes, Katherine Mruczek, Nellie Ding, Sean Turner
• Risk and Compliance: Nicholas Fuller, Ryan Leader
• Treasury Services: Jeffrey Sander