JPMorgan Chase’s decision to force its workers back into the office five days per week has sparked a staff revolt that has resulted in internal complaints and a potential path towards unionization at the company.
The financial giant’s return-to-office (RTO) mandate announced last week is set to take effect in March and requires all staff currently working on a hybrid model to be back on site full time.
Since the announcement, however, affected staff have taken to the company’s intranet to make their feelings known about the decision.
“The Best Way to Run the Company”
JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon has long been a vocal critic of working from home and hybrid arrangements, so a fulltime RTO mandate is no great surprise.
The company formally announced the decision last Friday, sending an internal memo from executives to staff saying that the best way to now run the company is to “solidify our full-time in-office approach.”
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It’s understood that around 40% of JPMorgan’s approximate 316,000 strong workforce are to be affected by the decision.
“Being together greatly enhances mentoring, learning, brainstorming and getting things done,” said the memo.
Not Everyone Agrees With the Decision
The memo went on to say that its signatories “respectfully understand that not everyone will agree with this decision” – a sentiment that was proved correct in the immediate aftermath.
Reuters has reported that staff have pushed back against the decision by posting negative comments on the company’s intranet site. Its anonymous sources told the news site that comments on the page were locked after 300 were made in the first hour after the memo was circulated.
Increased commuting and childcare costs, mental health concerns and stress were all reasons given for the dissension among those who commented.
Financial news magazine Barron’s has since reported (paywalled) that JPMorgan may be facing unionization of its workforce as a consequence.
It says that some staff have discussed the possibility privately, following the lead of some employees at competitor Wells Fargo. A Google form has been circulated among affected staff, it says, asking whether colleagues would support an effort to organize a union.
The Great RTO Continues
The backlash at JPMorgan comes just days after employees started a petition against a new RTO mandate at WPP. More than 11,000 staff have put their name on a complaint against the advertising company for taking “a step backwards in supporting employee wellbeing and work-life balance.”
But WPP and JPMorgan aren’t the first (and are unlikely to be the last) companies ending fully remote working.
The world’s wealthiest man Elon Musk has been an outspoken critic of remote working policies, having Tesla and X staff return to the office at the earliest opportunity.
Other huge names in the tech industry have followed suit, with Dell and Ubisoft among those issuing RTO mandates last year. And in September, Amazon announced it was ending hybrid work and demanded staff back into the office.
