Goldman Sachs rolls out new initiatives to retain employees

Goldman Sachs, in an attempt to stop its employees from getting poached by other Wall Street firms, has rolled out a series of new initiatives. These include faster promotions, less menial work and more diverse experiences.

These initiatives were derived through a process of interviews that involved hundreds of junior bankers asking employees what it would take to make them stay at Goldman rather than quit to join other companies such as hedge funds, asset managers and tech companies.

The new initiatives were disclosed to Goldman employees yesterday (5 November).

Though banks have become less attractive to work for after a decline in bonuses and various scandals, David Solomon, co-head of investment banking believed there were "still a lot of people who want to work for Goldman Sachs."

"In the competitive world that we live in it's important that we do not take [people wanting to work for the bank] for granted" he added.

Some of initiatives of Goldman Sachs include:

- Analysts could expect to be promoted to associates within two years, provided their performance is up to the mark. This is a year faster in comparison to the traditional process.

- It would now take two years lesser than the earlier seven and a half years for the best candidates to be promoted to the vice-president level.

- The nature of an analyst's job is being improved via technology, such that juniors spend lesser time on mind-numbing tasks such as filling in Excel sheets and developing pitch books.

- To make the task of finding information easier for bankers, a new knowledge management function is being developed.

- To make processes more efficient, the company will dedicate a new group of between 10 and 50 team managers across the bank.

- Investment-Banking analysts, after their first two years at Goldman, will be offered rotations across other parts of the world or other business divisions. "Mobility has always been a core part of the culture at Goldman Sachs. It's probably been more difficult to enhance it as the firm got bigger. We're going back to our roots and trying to find a way to enhance that experience and mobility", Solomon said.

Apart from these initiatives, Goldman has already tried to attract its junior employees with better pay such as a 20% pay rise in summer 2014 and better conditions. From the time the process to retain employees was started five years ago, there are tangible results in the context of retaining employees in their early years, Solomon said, without disclosing the retention numbers or targets.