SocGen insiders say there was an awkward town hall about returning to the office
As we reported last week, SocGen is asking people to work in the office four days a week instead of three and people there are not happy. There are now suggestions that attempts to assuage the situation in the investment bank have not been well received.
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SocGen didn't respond to multiple requests to comment, but sources at the bank in London say that Thierry D'Argent, the chief executive officer of SocGen's London branch, ran a town hall yesterday and unintentionally inflamed complaints about the extra day in the office.
D'Argent is understood to have downplayed the additional costs of commuting into the office another day a week. But insiders at the bank say this was "tone-deaf" because D'Argent himself has a driver. "It was a very difficult meeting," says one.
The situation is, at least, better than in France, where L'Agefi says unions are arranging a strike at SocGen tomorrow over the additional office day. Nearly 700 SocGen employees have commented so far on a union-run messaging board about it. Writing there, one says SocGen CEO Slawomir Krupa "thinks he's in the Wild West, with his sawn off shotgun on his belt, still smoking and his cigar."
Fortunately, they do not work for Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan.
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