Morgan Stanley Admits He Was Wrong to Rush a Return to Office for Workers

Morgan Stanley’s CEO James Gorman is having some regrets for pushing for a return to office.

The chief executive revealed this week that he was wrong about the move. Gorman has walked back on an edict that employees of the company should be back at the office by now.

“I was wrong on this,” he told CNBC’s Wilfred Frost Monday on “Closing Bell.” “I thought we would have been out of it past Labor Day and we’re not.”

“I think we’ll still be in it through most of next year,” Gorman said. “Everybody’s still finding their way.”

It was this past June that Gorman told conference attendees that he would be “very disappointed” if his workers hadn’t returned to Morgan Stanley buildings by Labor Day.

Those plans had been offset greatly in part by the discovery of the omicron Covid variant.

“I think we’ll still be in it through most of next year,” Gorman said. “Everybody’s still finding their way and then you get the omicron variant; who knows, we’ll have pi, we’ll have theta and epsilon, and we’ll eventually run out letters of the alphabet. It’s continuing to be an issue.”

Over half of Morgan Stanley employees have been back at the firm’s New York headquarters, home to the bank’s trading operations, Gorman said.

About 65% of vaccinated employees have returned to that building, and 95% of employees have gotten the jab, added the CEO.

Disclaimer: We have no position in any of the companies mentioned and have not been compensated for this article.