A hedge fund manager who once worked for JPMorganremembered the day his daughter was born a decade ago — he was backto work that afternoon.  (Photo: Shutterstock)

(Bloomberg) — When JPMorgan Chase & Co. agreed to pay alandmark $5 million to settle a discrimination claim from a new dad, it lookedlike a turning point for Wall Street parents. Men who work for thebiggest U.S. bank can take up to 16 weeks of parental leave, the bank emphasized, and saidit would do better at making sure they know it.

But bankers across the industry say it's easier to tweak policy— or pay the equivalent of 70 minutes of profit — than to actuallyrevamp the company culture that shapes the way people think andact.

Even though big banks and other Wall Street firms have boostedpaid time off for new parents to some of thehighest levels offered in the U.S., men still worry about stayingat home for months, according to interviews with a dozen currentand former employees. They fear what happens when they detach froma culture that lionizes face time and relationship upkeep. Thesignals are subtle and the pull of tradition is strong.

Khe Hy, who left his job as a managing director at BlackRockInc. in 2015, said he got two “nudge-nudge wink-winks” when he took10 days of paternity leave. “One was, 'We'll be able to reach youif we need to,' and the second one was, 'We can still include youin all conference calls, right?'” said Hy, who now coachesexecutives about money and writes about productivity.

“It's like: 'Come on, what could you possibly be doing in thefirst 10 days of your kid's life? You're not the mom.'”

A hedge fund manager who once worked for JPMorgan remembered theday his daughter was born a decade ago — he was back to work thatafternoon. A trader who used to work for Goldman Sachs Group Inc.and Citigroup Inc. said men who ask to take all the parental leavetheir companies offer are practically asking to get fired.

Poster dad

At UBS Group AG, Sam Kendall became a kind of poster dad forWall Street leave when the senior U.S. investmentbanker spoke publicly in 2016 about taking sixweeks off when his twins were born.

“I realized as a senior person in the organization, I had aresponsibility to model the behavior,” Kendall said. When his wifehad another kid earlier this year, he went on leave again for twoweeks. The shorter break, he said, “wasn't scientific, it reallywasn't. It just seemed appropriate.”

Only half of all working fathers think their bosses support timeoff with newborns, according to a new poll by theadvocacy group Paid Leave for the United States. Most companiesdon't give any paid parental leave in the U.S., one of only a fewcountries that don't mandate it.

By that measure, Wall Street is ahead of the pack. Most of thecountry's biggest banks and rivals including BlackRock offer 16weeks of paid time off for primary caregivers; “secondarycaregivers” get much less.

As part of JPMorgan's settlement, the bank said it would trainmanagers to ensure they know dads can also take the longer leave.In February, Goldman Sachs introduced a new e-learning program itsays will help bosses “effectively manage and support all parents.”But when bonuses can more than double a banker's salary, it can behard to imagine staying away from the office for one third of theyear.

Change needs to be deeper, according to Elizabeth Gulliver, whowas a vice president at Citigroup until 2016. “When something comesin as a perk, you see paid time off or flex time as the same asdiscounts to Equinox,” said Gulliver, who co-founded Kunik, acommunity for working parents. “It needs to be seen as a culturalchange, as a shift in mentality.”

That doesn't mean Wall Street's new dads aren't taking any timeoff with their new kids. More than 8,000 men at Wells Fargo &Co. have taken parental leave over the past two years, a littlemore than half as primary caregivers.

Bank of America Corp. is the only big bank that gives 16 paidweeks to new parents in the U.S., as long as they work more than 20hours a week, and 40% of parental leaves are taken by maleemployees. Steven Daigle, a senior vice president based in Florida,took the full four months when his wife had twins, around the timethey also adopted two boys. He said he felt supported, though onecolleague told him to consider what might go wrong while he wasout.

“I didn't have anybody that was directly saying, 'Don't dothis,' said Daigle. “It was more like things to think about.”

Climbing the ladder

At all the banks, and at any company that offers paid parentalleave, the policies themselves are supposed to be gender neutral sothat women alone don't suffer the potential career consequences ofhaving kids. But corporate culture tends to reward new parents whocan get back to work right away, and most dads can. That's onereason men climb the ladder faster — the biggest U.S. banks haveonly ever been run by men – andwomen make less.

“In order for the playing field to be leveled out for women, thefamily leave playing field has to be leveled out for men,”said Maria Potoroczyn, who was pregnant when she was hiredat Citigroup last year. She now works on strategy for the bank.“Unless we start giving both parents the same quantity leave, we'renot actually helping women advance.”

Her husband, Lukas Staniszewski, works on blockchain at IBM.He's taking the full 12 weeks offered to dads there. “Peoplebelieve they're more important than they are and struggle todisconnect,” he said. “It's one thing to have the policy to takethe leave. It's another thing to take it.”

READ MORE:

More companies embracing gender-neutral parentalleave policies

Report weighs different paid leaveplans

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