Lazard is extolling the virtues of its work-from-home policies in a rare show of support for hybrid work on Wall Street. WFH hasn't prevented young bankers and analysts from excelling at their jobs, Lazard's CEO said. Work-from-home is working for one top Wall Street firm.
Peter Orszag, the CEO of Lazard says that the financial services firm has one of the most flexible work-from-home policies in the sector. That's rare on Wall Street, which even after the pandemic changed how people work, is still known for a demanding culture that has analysts and first-year bankers working notoriously long hours — and increasingly often in the office. Lazard's New York employees, though, are asked to come into the office three days a week, while working two days remotely, Orszag said in a recent interview with Bloomberg.
That's resulted in a host of benefits for the firm's workers, Orszag said, adding that he believed WFH allowed young banking professional;s to run as "far and fast" as they could. He added that working from home also allows workers to tend to other areas of their lives while maintaining the sense that their work is meaningful. "There are many professions where you can't get around the effort part of it," Orsza said.
"Even if you're working hard, you need to have some degree of agency, and ability to — if something else is important in your life — to take time off, to go do that," he later added. Tracy Farr, a Lazard managing director, also praised the benefits of the.