Supporting Our Colleagues And Their Families

Goldman Sachs’ Head of Human Capital Management, Bentley de Beyer, shares how we are supporting our people around the world during the global health crisis:

As I write this post from my New York City apartment, where I’ve been working from home for nearly three weeks, I wanted to pause and applaud front-line healthcare workers, companies and individuals who are stepping up in big and small ways to contribute to the COVID-19 relief effort. Although many of us are confined in our homes, the power of community and human connection persists.

Earlier this week, Goldman Sachs announced it will offer 10 days of COVID-19 family leave to our people globally to care for family members, as needed, due to COVID-19 related illness or childcare needs, including homeschooling. This policy change comes at an important inflection point as the coronavirus crisis intensifies around the world, and the vast majority of our global workforce is working remotely and managing unique personal circumstances – from caring for a child whose school or daycare services are unavailable to tending to an ill or elderly family member (to highlight just a few examples). 

The COVID-19 family leave is a reflection of the firm’s commitment to ensuring our global workforce has access to the resources they need to care for themselves and their families. In addition to leave programs, other examples of our resources span the below areas.

Flexibility
We are providing guidance on how our people can approach workplace flexibility (e.g., staggered work hours, restructuring one’s day, blocking time to tend to family needs, etc.), and empowering them to be transparent about their personal demands so they can find a solution with their manager on how to best manage work and life.

Resources for Managers
Managers always play an important role in shaping their team’s experience, but now more than ever, we rely on our managers to stay connected with their teams and foster a supportive and flexible work environment. Our Learning team has acted quickly to boost our digital resources to help managers lead and manage their teams during this challenging period. We will be looking to share some of these insights on our Careers Blog in the coming weeks, in case helpful beyond the firm.

Resilience
Maintaining resilience is so important – and challenging – against the complex backdrop we are all navigating. We are providing our people with practical and proven strategies to respond to stress and adversity in a healthy way.

Importantly, we are listening to and learning from our incredible people every day, adapting and evolving our programs and policies – in real-time – to ensure we are responding to the needs of our people, their families and the communities in which we live.

As I reflect on my first two months at the firm, I am overwhelmed by the courage and dedication of our people around the world. From our Asia colleagues who have been dealing with this situation for months and sharing their learnings with the rest of the world to the firm’s fervent commitment to our clients and community, especially vulnerable populations and those on the frontlines fighting the spread of the coronavirus – the Goldman Sachs culture of partnership, integrity, excellence and client service is very much alive.

 

This article originally appeared on LinkedIn