JPMorgan plans to end hybrid work option, ask staff to work from office 5 days a week: Report

JPMorgan is planning to recall its employees to work from the office five days a week, thus ending a hybrid-work option for lakhs of staff that has been in place since the Covid pandemic, Bloomberg reported.

Currently, the largest bank in the US has a three-day work-from-office mandate for many of its more than three lakh global workforce. It is expected to announce the change in policy in the coming weeks, people familiar with the matter told the publication under the condition of anonymity.

A spokesman for the bank declined to comment on the development but said that about 70 percent of its employees were already back in the office five days a week, while everyone else worked from the office three or four days a week.

JPMorgan Chase chairman and CEO Jamie Dimon has been vocal about advocating employees’ return to office. The bank was also one of the first major employers to initiate a return to office policy, stating the limitations of remote work. According to a report in Fortune, Dimon stated that remote setups hinder “spontaneous idea generation” and aren’t conducive to managing teams effectively.

In April 2023, he called all of the bank’s managing directors back to the office five days a week, irrespective of whether they worked in demanding revenue-producing jobs or led back-office departments like technology and compliance, Business Insider reported.

Moreover, speaking at an event late last year, Dimon stressed that government employees too should be made to return to the office and expressed surprise at how many government buildings remain underutilised. “I can’t believe, when I come down here, the empty buildings. The people who work for you not going to the office,” Forbes quoted him as saying. “That bothers me. I don’t allow that.”

Source: GWFM Research & Study