Chase, Bank of America is cracking down on surprising workplace trend

After the banking industry faced major criticism for allegedly overworking its employees following the death of Leo Lukenas III, a 35-year-old Bank of America employee who died after working 100-hour weeks, two of Wall Street’s banking giants are making some big changes. .

Bank of America BAC and Chase Bank (JPM) have implemented new rules to help enforce limits on the number of hours its bankers work in an effort to combat overwork, according to a new Wall Street Journal report.

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The Journal revealed that Chase, in most cases, will limit work hours for its junior investment bankers to 80 hours per week. The only exception to this rule would be if the bankers are working on a real business.

Bank of America, on the other hand, will launch a new timekeeping tool that will ask junior bankers to share more details about how they spend their time. The bank already has a cap on working hours per week, but a Journal investigation last month found that employees are often instructed by managers to lie about the amount of hours they work so they can avoid scrutiny from Human Resources.

A pedestrian walks past a Bank of America location.

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The impact of Lukenas death

Lukenas’ death exposed the toxic work culture in the banking industry. Lukenas reportedly died of a blood clot in the heart in May while looking for a new job after dealing with the stress of allegedly working 100-hour weeks at Bank of America.

Douglas Walters, a recruiter who was in touch with Lukenas in the months before his death, told Reuters in an interview in May that Lukenas was looking for a job with a better work-life balance and was even willing to take a pay cut. to achieve this.

“He made a comment saying, ‘Hey, I’ll trade my sleep hours for a 10 percent discount,'” Walters said in the interview.

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In the days after Lukenas’ death, some Bank of America employees even considered a walkout on social media to fight for better working conditions, such as stronger policies imposing more caps on working hours. thing.

Lukenas’ death also prompted the Journal to launch its investigation into Bank of America’s work culture. The investigation found that some company workers often work through the night on projects. One former employee even revealed that she and her team at the company often worked until 5am and were allegedly instructed to lie about their hours.

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“Our practices are clear and we expect all employees, including managers, to follow them,” a Bank of America spokesman said in a statement to the Journal in August. “When we learned of the violations, disciplinary action was taken.”

Even before Lukenas’ death, the banking industry was exposed for employees working long hours. A 2023 Wall Street Oasis survey found that investment banking analysts, on average, work more than 70 hours a week and go to bed after 12am.

“Analysts and associates on the team work extremely hard (no exaggeration, 100+ hour weeks are very common and somewhat normalized),” a Barclays industrials analyst said in the survey.

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