It’s an early end to summer for Goldman Sachs employees who had their Summer Fridays privileges revoked this week as the bank struggles to gain solid ground amid a rocky year.
Multiple outlets reported that Goldman employees were told that they needed to be in the office five days a week, though a representative of the bank told The New York Post that the bank was “simply reminding our employees of our existing policy” and that there’s “flexibility when needed” for employees wishing to work out of the office.
The not-so-friendly reminder comes after the end of this year’s summer internship program, which has left offices “totally dead” on Fridays, the outlet reported.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon attends the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland (Getty Images)
Goldman Sachs did not immediately respond to Entrepreneur‘s request for comment.
Summer Fridays have become popular at companies in Northern U.S. cities, where employees are encouraged to take shorter days or work remotely on Fridays during the summer months — with many companies letting workers leave around by 2 p.m.
Bloomberg reported that “senior managers have grown frustrated” by the lack of in-office employees at the bank.
The strict reinforcement of the in-office mandate comes at a contentious time for Goldman, which saw a profit loss of over 58% in Q2 2023, in what was the worst quarterly profit for the bank since the early days of the pandemic in 2020.
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Goldman is also in the process of offloading Greensky, a financial technology company that administers home improvement loans to consumers which was purchased by the bank in September 2021.
“I think [CEO David Solomon is] really missing [another] trick if he thinks sending out that five-day note at this point will gain friends,” an anonymous employee told The Post.
The bank’s stock valuation was down just over 5.6% year-over-year as of Wednesday morning.
