JPMorgan insiders' verdict on 5 days in office: Inevitable, painful

For the moment, you can still - just about - find hybrid positions at JPMorgan. Soon, this maybe a thing of the past.

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Bloomberg reports today that JPMorgan will soon request that all its employees return to the office five days a week. This is despite the fact that the US bank is currently highlighting hybrid working arrangements in some job advertisements.

Managers at JPMorgan in London tell us the mandatory return to the office is news to them. "Nothing has been cascaded down on this," says one senior tech figure. "Nothing has been shared with me," says a banking MD.

JPMorgan didn't respond to a request to comment on the alleged plans but insiders say they're not really surprised. CEO Jamie Dimon has made no secret of the fact that he thinks working in the office is great In 2023, Dimon declared that JPMorgan employees should find another job if they didn't like the commute, before demanding that his managing directors return full-time and make themselves "visible" on the floor. By February 2024, those MDs were reportedly demanding that their reports spend five days a week in the office as well. “It’s only my team leader who is required to be in five days a week, but the message is clear that we should all do the same,” one JPMorgan banker told the Financial Times last year. “This is coming straight from the top, and everyone knows the implicit rules.” 

There were rumours internally that JPMorgan planned to demand a five day a week return January, so this year's eventual implementation may even be a kind of reprieve. Even so, insiders say it's unlikely to be popular. One senior JPMorgan technologist tells us "three days a week in the office are enough." 

"Some people won't like this and may look to move," says the technology manager. "Ironically, they will probably be the younger and less experienced people who really need to be in the office." 

JPMorgan's past efforts to get people into the office have met with resistance. Business Insider claimed in 2023 that JPMorgan had a "workplace surveillance" system to track office attendance, and there were unconfirmed claims the same year that employees who were found not to be in the office over a long period of time were being dismissed without severance.

"This should not be a shock" says the banking MD. "We've all pretty much been in the office full time throughout the past year." One former JPMorgan technologist tells us he's left already and is now working for a firm that allows him to be fully remote: "This best fits my current lifestyle." 

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