JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has said many things about working from home.
The banking executive has repeatedly shared why he thinks workers aren’t as effective when they’re not in the office and how that can negatively impact company culture.
Take all his comments together, and a very specific image of the work-from-home employee emerges: They largely work in corporate jobs, are inattentive, and are at times hard to reach.
“I think our employees will be happier over time,” Dimon said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Thursday, referring to JPMorgan’s return-to-office mandate. “And the younger people will learn the right way, it’s an apprenticeship system. And you can’t learn working from your basement.”
He has added the caveat that WFH can be effective in certain areas, such as virtual call centers. Still, it does reflect how skeptical he is of a coveted work perk — for some, a requirement — that many employees seek in their jobs.
JPMorgan issued a five-day return-to-work mandate for most of its employees in January, and Dimon said in the Bloomberg TV interview that 10% of JPMorgan is remote.
In his annual shareholder letter last year, Dimon said JPM has seen significant growth in the past half-decade while also allowing some “bad habits to develop.”
“Working from home exacerbated the situation by hindering innovation, slowing decision-making, inhibiting information sharing, reducing efficiency, and creating more politics and bureaucracy,” he wrote.
A spokesperson for JPMorgan did not respond to a request for comment.
Here’s what else Dimon has said about working from home.
WFH stifles innovation
Dimon has said that remote work doesn’t allow for a free flow of exchange of ideas that in-person work can, and that it ultimately slows down innovation at a company.
“Remote work eliminates much spontaneous learning and creativity because you don’t run into people at the coffee machine, talk with clients in unplanned scenarios or travel to meet with customers and employees for feedback on your products and services,” he wrote in an annual shareholder letter in 2021, explaining the “serious weaknesses” of working in the “virtual world.”
Remote work is bad for young professionals
Remote work is especially bad for up-and-coming professionals, according to the banking CEO.
In an interview at the Stanford Graduate School of Business in late February, Dimon said WFH doesn’t work in his business and that “younger people are being left behind” because of it. The effects are not immediate but “cumulative,” he said.
“It’s not the first month you’re working. It’s by the second year, you have less people; you’re put in less assignments; you know less what’s going on; you have less conversations at the water cooler or in the cafeteria — so it’s leaving them behind,” Dimon said. “I won’t do that.”
In the 2021 shareholder letter, the CEO said that professionals learn through mentors or apprenticeships, which “is almost impossible to replicate in the Zoom world.”
WFH workers are inattentive during meetings
One of Dimon’s apparent frustrations with working from home is how inattentive his employees seem to be during virtual meetings.
“A lot of you were on the fucking Zoom and you were doing the following,” Dimon said in a leaked audio recording that was obtained by BI. “Looking at your mail, sending texts to each other about what an asshole the other person is, not paying attention, not reading your stuff.”
He echoed the sentiment again during the event at Stanford.
“As I was talking, there were 12 people in the room and four people on the screen, and all four people on the screen were on their phone,” he said of a Zoom meeting he was in. “And you think you’re focusing and learning?”
Only office workers whine about RTO
Dimon said during his Stanford chat that the majority of American workers have never worked remote, pointing to doctors, firefighters, and deliverers, among others.
“It’s only these people in the middle who complain a lot about it,” he said, referencing white-collar workers.
What about a hybrid schedule?
“And don’t give me this shit that work-from-home-Fridays works,” the CEO said in the leaked audio recording. “I call a lot of people on Fridays, and there’s not a goddamn person you can get a hold of.”
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