On a Wednesday in mid-May, Kevin Brunner and Ivan Farman, Bank of America's coheads of merger and acquisitions, were set to host a phone call with their team's junior staffers in New York and Palo Alto around expectations for in-office attendance, which had been sparse.
The pair didn't show — a person familiar with the matter said they both had conflicts — and instead the chief resource officer, a mid-level group official responsible for staffing juniors to deals, delivered the news: All employees at all levels in investment banking, referred to as "IBK," would be expected back in the office at least four days a week, and they wanted to see M&A staffers back five days a week.
"I want to communicate that the current expectation here — and this is being communicated across all of IBK and all levels — is that we as a firm come in at minimum four days a week. Again, this is an all IBK, all levels update," said Malav Chakravorty, the M&A chief resource officer who led the call. "And then I will say, specifically in M&A, we would love to see you five days a week."
"We will be in contact with you on a weekly basis here as we really focus on this initiative," Chakravorty said, according to a recording of the call heard by Insider. Two people with direct knowledge of the call confirmed details surrounding its circumstances.
No follow-up email or written directive was issued detailing the changes, the sources said. But the next week, investment banking head Thomas Sheehan visited the division's teams in-person at the firm's One Bryant Park headquarters and verbally reiterated the return-to-office expectations, one junior investment banker said.
Attendance has been closely monitored since and managers in the unit have called employees to grill them about absences, this person said.
The episode highlights Bank of America's strategy of empowering divisional leaders to mandate return-to-office regimes stricter than the bank's official, broader policy, which has created a hodge-podge of rules and attendance across teams.
It also underscores an aversion by some BofA leaders to put more austere measures in writing.
A Bank of America spokesman declined to comment on the firm's return-to-office procedures beyond reiterating the official company policy, which is to work from the office more often than at home while promoting remote-work flexibility at the manager's discretion.
Employees have been grilled about absences
Demands for in-person work have become common in recent months at Wall Street investment banks, whose leaders are pressing to reclaim tenets of prepandemic office culture, even after their dealmaking and trading operations produced record performance in the remote-work era. Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan have faced internal blowback from employees over rigid enforcement and tracking of return-to-office initiatives.
Fully staffed and bustling offices have taken on added importance as summer interns, the pipeline of future junior talent, flock to Wall Street offices this month.
Bank of America called vaccinated employees back to the office in March without prescribing either a hybrid or full-time attendance policy, and it expanded its call to all employees regardless of vaccination status last week.
The tactics in the M&A team echo those in other hard-charging groups, such as the equities trading unit, in which managers have conveyed full-time, in-office expectations without formally enshrining them in a company memo, sources previously told Insider.
"They've generally avoided putting anything on paper and such decisions are communicated on calls," the junior investment banking employee told Insider, suggesting it was an attempt to avoid the leaks and bad publicity that have become fodder for popular Instagram accounts dedicated to lampooning Wall Street.
But the message was nonetheless received loud and clear.
After the call in May, attendance swelled, the investment banking staffer said. This person added that attendance has been tracked closely and that managers have called absent employees to grill them about their whereabouts and to reiterate the attendance expectations.
"We are junior, you don't want to be in the bad book," this person said.
In the investment banking group, some people are unhappy with the in-office demands, especially as Covid-19 has continued to spread, including among team members.
One person on the mid-May call asked how Covid-19, which in May surged throughout New York City, factored into the thought process behind the policy, according to the audio heard by Insider. This person noted that deal team members "regularly are still getting Covid." The guidance provided was simple: If you know you have Covid-19, report it and do not come in.
This person expressed concern about exposure on the team given the lag between infection and the presence of symptoms, which was met with several seconds of silence before the host thanked them for the comment.
"The lack of flexibility given how much the bank demands from its junior investment bankers feels like shit to be honest," the junior investment bank staffer with knowledge of the call told Insider.
Are you an employee at Bank of America? If you have more information, contact Alex Morrell via email at amorrell@bjinnox.com, and on encrypted apps Signal or Telegram at (262) 573-1023.
