If you ever had any doubts these overpaid corporate clowns just don’t care, this piece from Barton’s about JP Morgan’s RTO fiasco should prove it. They all know it’s BS, they have no data to support it and they don’t care.
There has to be something similar floating around T given our obsession with decks.
Investors and analysts applauded JPMorgan Chase on Wednesday when it reported record annual profit of $58.5 billion. Shares sailed to a record high.
Inside the firm, the response was more mixed.
JPMorgan added the earnings report to an internal website where memos are regularly posted with room for staff to write comments. The announcement drew around 65 notes. Many were critical of the strong results in the wake of the company’s recent decision to mandate a five-day in-office policy for its 317,000 employees. Employees questioned why the company was changing its hybrid-work policy even as the firm was thriving.
The bank eventually shut off employees’ ability to add more comments. JPMorgan had also disabled commenting last Friday, when it announced the return-to-office policy, generating a wave of worker criticism. The new policy takes effect in March and replaces a three-day requirement.
Last week, some employees openly challenged the decision. Some said that the policy would hurt work-life balance, disrupt child-care arrangements, and in some cases lead to spending time commuting just to sit on Zoom calls with colleagues in different cities.
Barron’s has since viewed internal JPMorgan presentation slides that offer insight into the company decision. The slides indicate that management knew the move was likely to prompt employee criticism, lower employee opinion survey scores, and lead some colleagues to leave the firm. A JPMorgan spokesperson says the documents were drafts.
Together the slides, which are marked “JPMC Internal Use Only—Confidential,” present a rare snapshot into one firm’s thinking around postpandemic work policies, a topic that has grown contentious on Wall Street and across corporate America. As some employees worry about a decrease in autonomy, many executives say they need workers in the office to foster collaboration and maximize productivity.
“It’s possible that we will lose talent in the short-term as a result of this decision,” one of the slides said. “However, we don’t believe this will offset the value of returning full time to the office.”
A JPMorgan spokesperson told Barron’s: “The document you are referencing is not an official or approved training document that was presented or distributed to any group of managers at the firm. This was an early draft brainstorming document that a relatively small group was working on to share ideas.”
On Wednesday, during a call with reporters to discuss earnings, JPMorgan Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum said in response to a question: “We are very much not hoping for attrition as a function of return to the office. That’s a strategic decision for the company based on what we think is best for the long-term prospects of the company.”
Barnum added: “Attrition is a bad way to manage expenses anyway. You wind up with negative selection effects that are not good, and we’re just going to work through it as we always do.”
The materials viewed by Barron’s include specific dates for the in-office rollout, manager talking points about the changes, and financial penalties tied to low in-office attendance.
One slide lists “anticipated impacts” of the five-day effort. They include “‘quiet quitting’ and attrition” and unassigned seating in offices “making it difficult and stressful to find a seat + other behaviors like leaving personal belongings on desks, having to come in super early to get a seat.”
A separate document showed that part of employees’ pay would be impacted if their in-office attendance dipped: “Employees who received written warning for in-office attendance during 2024 will receive 5% AIC impact and managers need to add comment on their performance evaluation,” it said, referring to incentive compensation at the firm.
Managers were encouraged in the slides to gather employees’ feedback, monitor their teams’ morale, and emphasize that flexibility is still offered. Another slide noted that managers could still approve “short-term, occasional flexibility needs” up to four weeks.
JPMorgan’s operating committee said in its initial office-return memo last week that more than half of the workforce already goes into the office on a full-time basis. The “benefits of working together in person are substantial and irreplaceable, and as we spend more time together, the more advantages we gain,” the memo said.
Since the announcement, some JPMorgan employees have gauged each others’ interest in forming a union so that they have a say in decisions about working conditions.
Some staffers in the U.S. have met with the Committee for Better Banks, the group that is working with Wells Fargo employees to unionize, people familiar with the matter said. Employees who favor a union are gathering their colleagues’ opinions through a Google form that poses a series of questions about union interest, pay, and the new office policy.
The form has recorded 529 responses as of Friday afternoon. Results show that 95% of respondents disagree with the policy, 96% don’t view working in the office full-time as a way to promote collaboration, and 91% are concerned that the company hasn’t provided data or productivity metrics in support of the in-office mandate. Some 87% of respondents said they supported the idea of forming a union.
In one JPMorgan-created slide viewed by Barron’s, the firm lists “pain points” that employees may face from the new policy and potential solutions.
In response to one hypothetical complaint, “I don’t have time to see my kids or exercise,” the document suggests to “empower managers to provide ad-hoc flexibility.”
The document also suggests to “increase pantry facilities (microwaves, fridges)” in response to complaints about long lines for lunch.
Other issues that the slide authors expected employees to raise include “resentment of commute time and expenses which could be better spent on personal needs,” a “lack of transparency on tracking and monitoring,” and “loss of autonomy, control over work environment and schedule.”
Elsewhere on the list of impacts: “negative media coverage.”
Write to Rebecca Ungarino at rebecca.ungarino@barrons.com