How necessary are the 7am-11pm hours really? Could the banks do just as good of a job if they hired more people who worked 40 hour weeks? (Increased salary costs notwithstanding)
I work at a law firm specializing in IPO. I had the same thought in mind when I joined.
Hiring more people does help but there will still not be 40 hour work weeks. In many instances, some people in the team has built up the knowledge on a particular part of the deal that it is difficult to outsource since it would be much faster for the person to complete the work themselves.
Hiring more people also means that the information is diffused around. If one person working on a deal it means that he knows 100% about the deal. If 100 people is working on the same deal, efficiency would greatly decrease as knowledge management becomes important (lots of emails).
Thanks for the info! Is the demand for detailed knowledge 16 hours at a time, or is it more like being "on call" for when a client suddenly gets a wild idea and wants numbers to be run for it?
From interviews by folks on Wallstreetoasis.com, this is my understanding of the hours. Some days they may have 2-4 hour breaks (gym time / internet time), then have to crunch in the evening when a client, or an internal-facing client (such as a Managing Partner) comes back.
In my short time at a small consulting firm (Management / C level), this was also the case.
Many times my long hours were due to "deliverables" (PowerPoints, documents, etc.) being in a choke point based on an Analyst, Consultant, etc.
E.g., waiting on numbers to finish a presentation.
However, much of the time, their is ALWAYS something to do, and much of it is very much face-time (butts in seats = working).
Sounds like they need oil-rig hours. 2 weeks on, 1 week off. Or something to that effect. Make people work insane hours, but give them 2-3 months of vacation a year.
I'm going to disagree with the other posters. At least in investment banking, the hours are driven by the pace of corporate transactions. Mergers and divestitures are fragile things, and there is a tremendous incentive to get them done as quickly as possible. Investment bankers are at the service of their clients, and when the client wants someone to run the numbers on some idea on Thursday evening so he can have them for a meeting Friday morning, the bankers have to get it done. And that work has to be done by the people who have intimate knowledge of the deal, not some night-shift crew. Companies paying tens of millions of dollars in bankers' fees demand a certain level of service.
"Working insane hours is a sign of commitment, of willingness to sacrifice for the job; the personal destructiveness of the practice isn’t a bug, it’s a feature."
