The CEO of America’s largest bank has once again passionately defended his ironclad stance on remote work, this time in front curious college students.
While speaking at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business last week, Jamie Dimon, 68, said he’s ‘had enough’ of the now-common workplace practice and that it simply ‘doesn’t work’ in his business.
Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase for the last two decades, got onto the controversial topic after a graduate student asked a question regarding his leaked, expletive-loaded remarks from a company town hall about the finance firm’s end of hybrid work.
‘I’ve admittedly listened to the leaked audio clip that was circulating on Twitter about your strong opinions on remote work,’ the student divulged before probing the chairman on his much-disputed stance.
‘I would love to just hear some of your thoughts, or guidance, or advice on how we should think about these topics,’ the student added.
In response, Dimon, whose heated criticisms of remote work have made him a champion of the return-to-office culture shift, claimed the only group of people disgruntled with the move are ‘the people in the middle’ – like corporate office workers.
‘If you work in a restaurant, you’ve got to be in. You all may not know this, but 60 percent of Americans worked the whole time,’ he said.
‘Where did you get your Amazon packages from? Your beef, your meat, your vodka? Where did you get the diapers from?’
While speaking at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business last week, Jamie Dimon, 68, said he’s ‘had enough’ of the now-common workplace practice and that it simply ‘doesn’t work’ in his business
‘I’ve admittedly listened to the leaked audio clip that was circulating on Twitter about your strong opinions on remote work,’ the student divulged before probing the chairman on his much-disputed stance
The Harvard Business School-graduate appeared to be referring to people who continued to work in person during the pandemic.
‘You got UPS and FedEx and manufacturers and agriculture and hospitals and cities and schools and nurses and sanitation and firemen and military. They all worked,’ he continued.
‘It’s only these people in the middle who complain a lot about it.’
White-collar workers, who generally have more freedom with where their work can be performed than frontline workers, have had various responses to return-to-office mandates in recent years.
Some have pushed back or questioned such mandates or even quit over them – something the longtime CEO said he is ‘OK with.’
‘I completely respect people that don’t want to go to the office all five days a week. That’s your right. It’s my right. It’s a citizen’s right,’ he previously told CNBC.
‘But they should respect that the company is going to decide what’s good for the clients, the company, etc., not an individual.’
Earlier this year, the JPMorgan Chase CEO announced that it would require employees to return to office five days a week, beginning in March.
Dimon also said one reason he wanted people back in the office was that ‘younger people are being left behind.’
‘To have the younger people coming in but not their bosses – I have a problem with that too,’ he said.
He also noted that the benefits of in-person office conversations will help younger people to succeed in their careers.
‘All day long we’re talking,’ he said. ‘Constant updates, constant share of information.’
Earlier this year, the JPMorgan Chase CEO (left) announced that it would require employees to return to office five days a week, beginning in March. Pictured: Jamie Dimon and wife Judith Kent arrive for a State Dinner in honor of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, at the Booksellers Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on April 10, 2024
Remote work means young people miss out on these conversations, essentially ‘leaving them behind,’ Dimon said. ‘I won’t do that.’
Dimon further added that remote employees tend to not pay attention on company Zoom calls.
However, even with all the threats against working from home, the commercial and investment banking company still employs remote workers.
About 10 percent of the bank’s jobs operate on a fully remote basis and have stayed that way even after the return-to-office mandate.
JPMorgan runs virtual call centers in Baltimore and Detroit that collectively employ more than 100 remote workers.
In addition, 60 percent of JPMorgan staff, including managing directors and salespeople, were already at the office five days per week, according to Bloomberg.
The switch to fully in-person work took effect at the end of February, impacting back-office staff who previously worked on a hybrid schedule.
Dimon’s strong-armed stance on remote-work went viral after one of the company’s employee asked a question during a company town hall back in February.
The question, posed by Nicolas Welch, a tech analyst at the bank since 2017, triggered an extraordinary rant from the chairman.
The 68-year-old company foreman responded with a long-winded rant against working from home, and defended his earlier order dragging all employees back into the office five days a week.
‘That’s it? I’m going to give you a complete answer. There is no chance that I would leave that up to managers. Zero chance,’ he said.
Welch, a self-confessed ‘old hillbilly,’ also asked Dimon if remote work could be ‘left up to managers of individual teams,’ to decide based on the ‘necessity of an office workplace.’
However, the bank boss didn’t take lightly to Welch’s comment, claiming the commonplace practice was widely abused by employees.
‘The abuse that took place is extraordinary. You may be a great manager, but… I’m going to give you examples of how bad it got. OK?’ Dimon said.
He said he came to the realization that hybrid work wasn’t working for the rest of the company, and was causing huge inefficiencies.
‘Now, your manager moved to Florida. We never made a promise that it would be forever. That’s their problem, not mine,’ he said.
‘So people said, “We moved, we didn’t move” – we always told people that we were going to be a work-from-the-office type of company.
‘And so we allowed three days and two days. But here are the problems, OK? And they are substantial…the young generation is being damaged by this.
‘They may or may not be in your particular staff, but they are being left behind. They’re being left behind socially, ideas, meeting people.
‘In fact, my guess is most of you live in communities a hell of a lot less diverse than this room.’
Dimon also railed against the ‘rudeness’ of staff fiddling with their phones and not paying attention during Zoom calls, which he said ‘slows down efficiency, creativity’.
JPMorgan techie Nicolas Welch, whose question at a company town hall triggered an extraordinary work-from-home rant by the chairman, claims he was briefly fired over it
Dimon responded with a long rant against working from home, and defended his earlier order dragging all employees back into the office five days a week
JPMorgan’s offices in Columbus, Ohio, where Welch works
‘When I found out that people were doing that – you don’t do that in my goddamn meetings. If you’re going to meet with me, you’ve got my attention, you’ve got my focus, I don’t bring my goddamn phone, I’m not sending texts to people,’ he said.
‘It simply doesn’t work. It doesn’t work for creativity, it slows down decision-making.
‘And don’t give me this s**t that work-from-home-Friday works. I call a lot of people on Fridays, and there’s not a goddamn person you can get a hold of.’
Dimon acknowledged the need for flexibility, particularly for mothers and caregivers, but said managers failed to manage to properly and it got out of hand.
‘They didn’t manage, they were making exceptions, and people making exceptions for exceptions, and meanwhile, head count has gone up by 50,000 people in four, five years,’ he said.
‘We don’t need all those people. We were putting people in jobs because the people weren’t doing the job they were hired to do in the first place. It simply doesn’t work.
‘I will not be responsible for a company like that, OK, and I’m sorry. Now – you have a choice. You don’t have to work at JPMorgan. So the people of you who don’t want to work at the company, that’s fine with me.’
Dimon then went off on a tangent about the firm having too much bureaucracy that needed to be reined in, and asked for suggestions from staff.
‘We’re going to build a great company, and we’re going to be disciplined and detailed and factual and honest and hardworking, and that’s how we’re going to do it. And honest with each other,’ he said.