J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. is giving its investment bankers an unusual mandate: Relax, take some time off.

The firm launched a new effort on Thursday to encourage its investment bankers to take their weekends off—as long as there isn't a live deal in the works.

Carlos Hernandez, J.P. Morgan's head of global banking, announced the policy Thursday morning on an internal call, saying the rules applied to everyone from analysts to managing directors, the firm said.

The initiative, dubbed "Pencils Down," is unusual in a high-powered corner of Wall Street where 100-hour weeks are worn by some as a badge of honor and dreaded by others as an antiquated aspect of the job that leads to early burnout.

J.P. Morgan, the largest bank in the country by assets, joins a number of Wall Street firms that have taken steps to retain their junior bankers and improve work-life balance.

"At the end of the day continuity matters, developing people who understand the firm, understand the culture," Mr. Hernandez said in an interview. "We're not tearing the whole place upside down, it is enhancements...and realistic to what this generation wants."

Mr. Hernandez says the policy is designed to get people out of the office and back home, or wherever they choose to relax. The firm isn't imposing guidelines on how often employees should check their smartphones but the expectation is that most weekends will be free of time-consuming work obligations unless a deal is breaking.

Mr. Hernandez also announced that the bank is rolling out an accelerated promotions program in all global offices that was previously only available for certain North America locations. The program speeds up promotions for top performers in every position, reducing the time it takes for an analyst, the lowest rank at the bank, to rise up to managing director.

A typical progression for a J.P. Morgan investment banker starts with three years as an analyst, followed by 3½ years as an associate, then three years as a vice president, and three years as an executive director before reaching the managing director title. Staffers who receive an "E" performance rating—for "exceeds expectations"—can shave off up to one year at each position.

Mr. Hernandez, who has worked in different groups across the world for the bank, also discussed an initiative called "Team Connect" that boosts the bank's apprenticeship program and adds more membership events for analysts and managing directors in an effort to make junior bankers feel more included.

"All this stuff is really making people feel—across the whole spectrum, but primarily with juniors—that they do matter," Mr. Hernandez said.

In November, Chairman and Chief Executive James Dimon spent more than an hour answering questions at an analyst and associate investment bank "appreciation event" hosted at J.P. Morgan.

The focus on Wall Street's work conditions, particularly among lower-level employees, intensified following the death of a Bank of America Corp. intern in 2012. A medical examination found exhaustion as a possible cause in the intern's death, helping trigger a spate of new rules by major banks to pull back on hours.

Bank of America in 2014 began encouraging junior staffers to take at least four weekend days off a month while Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. have created committees dedicated to work-life issues for its youngest workers.

About two years ago J.P. Morgan added a "protected weekend" where employees can flag if they need the full weekend off for a variety of reasons, such as a wedding or college reunion.

J.P. Morgan's "Pencils Down" initiative doesn't apply to situations when deals are being actively put together, which often happens on weekends.

A spokeswoman said that "a vast majority" of employees aren't expected to be working on the weekends.

The hope is that it reduces time on the weekends younger employees spend on presentations or markets information that aren't as time sensitive, reflecting changes over the last decade in the way work gets done on Wall Street, Mr. Hernandez said.

J.P. Morgan has also made efforts to streamline more work processes. For instance, the bank's high-grade bond desk now uses an application that automates bond prices and issuance information rather than requiring younger bankers to fetch data and fill out spreadsheets, Mr. Hernandez said.

The overall changes apply to more than 2,000 people in J.P. Morgan's investment bank out of the firm's total 234,598 employees.

Parts of the investment bank were top performers within the firm last year, with advisory revenue jumping 43% in the fourth quarter compared with a year earlier, riding the 2015 deal boom.

Write to Emily Glazer at emily.glazer@wsj.com and Daniel Huang at dan.huang@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 21, 2016 09:45 ET (14:45 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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