Doing Our Collective Best Keeping Us All As Safe As Possible

In February 2020, we quickly set up everyone at Jefferies to operate from home and correctly anticipated that successfully tackling the pandemic would take a long time.  Each of you around the globe rallied and the firm has had the best period in our history, thanks to all of your efforts.  Along the way, we made sure that there was no pressure for anyone to return to the office and allowed for maximum work location flexibility.  During the current summer, we have worked hard to make sure those of you who feel comfortable being back in the office could have some fun with the rest of us, so long as you are vaccinated.  Our goal has been, and continues to be, to move to the future of work in September and begin to reestablish some degree of normalcy.  To be clear yet again, we are embracing a flexible model of the future of work at Jefferies that will allow individual teams, desks and groups to choose what is the best way to balance efficiency, comradery, learning, mentoring, client interaction and lifestyle enjoyment.  One size will not fit all at Jefferies and we will always continue to listen to our teammates and come to the right decisions together regarding workplace flexibility.

The Delta variant, in particular, is now complicating life further and we believe that, until the world gets much closer to fully vaccinated, this 4^th letter of the Greek alphabet may be followed by many additional letters denominating new variants.  The vast preponderance of people at Jefferies are vaccinated, and for that we are incredibly grateful.  Even so, this month we have had 40 new cases of Covid, including two short hospitalizations, almost all cases certain to be the Delta strain.  Thankfully, the fact that 92% of our colleagues contracting the virus this month were vaccinated resulted overall in mild cases and speedy recoveries.    

We have been hearing from many of you about your concerns for safety and health, and we have concluded that the best strategy for now is to only allow into Jefferies’ offices people who are fully vaccinated (and past the appropriate waiting period for full efficacy).  The same will apply for all events we host outside our offices.  This includes any guests or clients who may want to be with us in person.  We are giving everyone notice now, so if you have postponed getting vaccinated and wish to come to the office, please get the process started ASAP.  We believe these protocols will best protect the vast majority of Jefferies people and our family members. 

We require that, after Labor Day, anyone who is not fully vaccinated should continue to work from home, which fortunately has proven to be highly effective.  We will closely monitor the situation and be ready to pivot and adapt whenever needed.  This includes rules on masks, allowing for increased flexibility for non-vaxed people when appropriate, and any other aspect of this evolving pandemic.  We will continue to be proactive in protecting all of our partners, react to new information when it becomes available and be transparent with our thoughts and in our communication.

Thank you all for your support and trust as we continue to navigate the way forward together,

Rich and Brian