As we all know during covid many schools, businesses, and all other forms of communication went online, and that means work moved remote. Now a couple of years out from the pandemic companies are wanting their employees back in the office full time. Naturally, this has caused a bit of a stir and it is definitely being felt at JPMorgan.
JPMorgan is America's largest bank employing over 315,000 people nationwide. About 60% of these workers have been back in the office but now the company is mandating that all employees return to in-person office work. On February 12th, Jamie Dimon the JPM CEO held a town hall meeting in Columbus Ohio with 1,000 employees in attendance with more on Zoom. Nic Welch, an employee, asked Dimon if the decision for employees working from home be left up to the managers. Nic explained his view saying that he works with people in India and Buenos Aires, with their team working in four different timezones. Dimon’s answer to this question; “Zero chance.”
There was a petition circling started by employees with the goal of rolling back the return-to-work mandate. Dimon’s response to this; “I don’t care how many people sign that f***ing petition.” It is very clear to see that Jamie Dimon is not in support of working from home, but is his hatred for it really warranted? Forbes reports that when employees have a flexible work schedule productivity increases by 29% while their ability to focus jumps 53%. So if productivity climbs nearly a third higher than normal why would managers be upset by this? The answer to this question really comes down to optics. Managers, bosses, and CEOs simply do not trust that their employees are putting their best work out. As a consequence of this thinking some employers, including JPMorgan, installed monitoring software to make sure their employees were working. This action then leads employees to not trust their companies which furthers the problem even more. The War on working from home is far from over.
Sources:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/terinaallen/2025/01/10/the-jpmorgan-memo-ends-remote-work-and-tells-employees-to-return-to-office/
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