Jaime Dimon, Chairman of JP Morgan, pictured, has told staff to come back to the office in June. He said he's done with Zoom meetings and wants the real thing. He said that young professionals want to hustle and they need to be in the office to do that. Of course, hustle is synonymous with New York street culture in general and Wall Street in particular.
Goldman Sachs' Chairman has also ordered New York and London staff to return to the office in June and finds the culture of working from home to be at odds with the unique investment bank way of conducting business.
JP Morgan and Goldman set the standard for working environment practices in the financial services industry and more broadly in much of corporate America. But San Francisco seems to be out of step.
Susie Neilson a reporter with the San Francisco Chronicle has been tracking the reluctance of Bay Area workers to return to the office. Is it because they feel unsafe and susceptible to Covid infection ? But high vaccination rates and low hesitancy percentages suggest that the Bay Area workforce should be better protected from contracting the virus in the office, on the elevator or even public transit. So what is up with Bay Area workers ?
First, let's take a look at how San Francisco compares to other US cities as regards willingness to be vaccinated versus hesitancy.
These tables show 3 categories, 1) willingness to get the vaccine, 2) unsure of getting it and 3) definitely won't get vaccinated.
San Francisco comes in top as regards willingness to get the vaccine at 71% with 16% unsure and 14% opposed. So with such a high level of acceptance you would think there would be a high degree of confidence that it's safe to go back to work. But no, that's not the case.
Susie Neilson has been studying this baffling dichotomy in the San Francisco Bay Area for The Chronicle. She will be my guest on The San Francisco Experience on Wednesday May 12 and try to make sense of this apparent contradiction. Is it just San Francisco being its' quirky self or is there something more complex at play in the City by The Bay ?
Tune in to TSFE on Wednesday to hear Susie's take on this apparent contradiction.
