JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the U.S. with over 300,000 employees, rattled corporate America last month when it announced that it was burying remote work.
Beginning in March, Chase employees will be required to return to working in the office five days a week after being allowed to do so only three or four days a week.
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In a memo announcing the decision last month, Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said that cutting out remote work “greatly enhances mentoring, learning, brainstorming and getting things done.”
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“We know that some of you prefer a hybrid schedule and respectfully understand that not everyone will agree with this decision,” said Dimon. “We are now a few years out of the pandemic and have had the time to evaluate the benefits and challenges of remote and hybrid working. We feel that now is the right time to solidify our full-time in-office approach. We think it is the best way to run the company.”
The move from Chase wasn’t too surprising since Dimon previously expressed his distaste for remote work during an appearance at The Atlantic Festival last year.
“The people (who) work for you are not going to the office anymore,” said Dimon at the festival. “That bothers me. I don’t allow that at JP(Morgan Chase).”
Chase employees flag consequences of new RTO mandate
Now that March is nearing, Chase employees have issued a stern defense against the company’s new return-to-office mandate in a petition that was launched on coworker.org on Feb. 9.
In the petition, the workers admonished the mandate and said that they are “concerned” about the future of their workplace as “increasing toxicity” has infected their company culture.
Jamie Dimon, chief executive officer of JPMorgan Chase & Co., at the Institute of International Finance during the annual meetings of the IMF and World Bank in Washington, D.C. on Oct. 24, 2024.
“The recent mandate for 100% in-office work is a great leap backward: It hurts employees, customers, shareholders, and the firm’s reputation,” said the workers in the petition. “From a corporate-citizenship perspective, it worsens traffic and pollution while disproportionately pushing out women, caregivers, senior employees, and individuals with disabilities. Many of these are top performers, and many of them only able to join the workforce under hybrid work rules.”
They also said that most Chase employees are not assigned to work from the company’s new headquarters and will instead be required to work in “crowded” corporate offices that allegedly lack space, parking and food-service capacity.
They flagged that the offices are “noisy, inefficient, and uncomfortable” and that unassigned seating makes it “impractical” to use a preferred keyboard or mouse.
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When Chase suddenly announced that it was axing remote work, the workers said that it “sharply undermined trust” between employees and upper management.
“Management in many locations said for years that the hybrid model was here to stay – often predicated on similar real-estate and global-efficiency arguments to those laid out above,” said the workers. “People joined the company and built lives in reliance upon these representations.”
They stated that they have voiced their concerns about the new RTO mandate internally, but their concerns have been “repeatedly dismissed or silenced.”
“The whole ordeal has left us rank-and-file employees feeling betrayed and devalued,” said the workers.
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The Chase employees are demanding that the company retain its hybrid work model, invest resources to expand hybrid work to more job categories, and to allow remote workers to work from any Chase office in their region. The petition has so far gained almost 600 signatures.
Remote work is still very popular after Covid pandemic
Chase’s decision to discontinue remote work follows in the footsteps of Amazon, which recently began requiring their workers to return to working in the office five days a week.
Dell also announced late last month that it will be retiring its hybrid work policy in March and will make a full return to in-person work so it can keep up with the fast pace of innovation in the tech industry.
President Donald Trump also recently signed an executive order last month mandating all federal agencies to order their employees to return to working in the office full time.
Despite recent efforts to discontinue remote work, it is still very popular and preferred by many workers in corporate America. According to a recent survey from Pew Research Center, 75% of employed adult Americans said that they are working remotely at least some of the time.
Also, 46% said that if their company no longer allowed them to work from home, it would be unlikely that they would remain at their current job.
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