Solomon, CEO of Goldman Sachs, calls home working a ‘anomaly’

Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon said working from home was “not a new normal” for the investment banking giant, calling it an “aberration.”

Speaking at Credit Suisse’s annual virtual financial services forum on Wednesday, Solomon said the coronavirus pandemic had shifted a “significant portion” of Goldman Sachs employees to remote working.

However, he said the company had still managed to employ an average of less than 10% of its workforce in its offices around the world.

In New York, Solomon said Goldman had up to a quarter of its employees on site and that it had managed to get the same number back to its London offices last summer and fall, when UK public health restrictions had been eased for a short time.

Goldman had returned more than half of its workforce to its offices in Asia, Solomon said, but added that this fell again in the fall and winter months with a resurgence in coronavirus cases.

“I think for a company like ours which is an innovative, collaborative apprenticeship culture, this isn’t ideal for us, nor is it a new normal,” said Solomon.

“It is an anomaly that we are going to correct as soon as possible,” he added.

Solomon said his main focus was to make sure that the next group of young workers to join Goldman Sachs this summer would not join the company remotely, believing they were ‘direct contact’ and ‘direct. mentorship ‘.

He said he was “a strong believer in personal connectivity” and so, for a company like Goldman, he did not think that his post-pandemic ways of working would be vastly different.

Solomon’s comments contrast sharply with those of many big names in the technology space who have made the shift to remote working a more permanent part of their operations. The latest example is the music streaming service Spotify, which announced earlier this month that it would allow workers to work from anywhere after the pandemic.

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