Employees of JP Morgan may be ordered to return to office full time, that is, five days a week. Till now, only about 60 per cent of the workforce has been working from office five days a week, with the rest working hybrid, that is, coming in to the physical office only thrice a week. The bank has now reportedly decided to strictly enforce full-time return to office for the entire workforce.
The mandate will not really come as a surprise because Jamie Dimon, CEO, JP Morgan, has always been critical of remote work and flexibility. He has, in the past, on several occasions mentioned how in-person collaboration is a must and how ineffective remote work can be.
What remains to be seen is whether other financial institutions will follow suit and mandate full time work-from-office for their employees. With most workers resisting full time return-to-office (RTO), it will not be surprising if employees in the banking space begin to consider switching jobs in pursuit of more flexibility.
A similar full time return-to-office mandate at Amazon had resulted in strong resistance from the employees. To add to that, when the employees did return in keeping with a deadline, it was reportedly discovered that there was dearth of space in the office to accommodate all the employees! This had led to implementation of RTO in a phased manner.
