[ad_1]
JP Morgan has created an international role to oversee the “wellbeing and success” of junior bankers following renewed concern about the health and safety of overworked staff across the industry.
Ryland McClendon, its head of diversity and inclusion, has been appointed as the bank’s first “global investment banking associate and chief analyst”, referring to its most junior ranking staff.
“In this role, Ryland will be responsible for leading our associates and analysts around the world. She will help support their well-being and success, as well as equip and enable them to deliver for our business, clients and others,” said the bank in an internal memo seen by the Guardian, and first reported by CNBC.
McClendon will be based in New York but is expected to travel to JP Morgan’s other global hubs, including London, as part of the role. One of his first tasks will involve assessing how the bank will polish a new internal policy aimed at limiting the working hours of juniors to 80 hours a week. The cap has been communicated to investment banking teams, but has not yet been formally announced.
JP Morgan – which employs 330,000 people worldwide, 22,000 of whom are in the UK – is also planning to hire more junior bankers to ease the staff burden.
It’s part of broader efforts to tackle Wall Street banks’ reputation for grueling work hours that have proved fatal for some staff.
The industry’s high-pressure culture has long been a concern, but faced more scrutiny in 2013 after a 21-year-old Bank of America Merrill Lynch intern was found dead in a shower in his apartment. of London. He had worked for 72 hours straight and died of an epileptic seizure. Two years later, a 22-year-old Goldman Sachs analyst took his own life after complaining about working 100-hour weeks and all-nighters.
In the midst of the Covid pandemic, the sector has also been forced to do some soul-searching after a leaked presentation by 13 aggrieved first-year Goldman Sachs bankers explained how their 100-hour work weeks and the abuse of colleagues created “inhumane” working conditions. for new hires.
He is prompting some banks to issue one-time bonuses of up to $20,000, as well as Peloton bikes and sympathy helmets, and promises to enforce no-work Saturday rules.
But this year Bank of America lost two junior bankers in a matter of weeks. A 25-year-old trader from his London office collapsed on a football field in May, while earlier this month an associate in New York, who said he was working more than 100 hours a week, died from a blood clot
after the newsletter promotion
Social media was set on fire by the tragedies, with users worried that there were few bankers who could do anything other than quit their jobs or leave the industry entirely.
In the UK and Ireland, the Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123, or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In the United States, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the Lifeline crisis support service is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.