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JPMorgan Chase could soon be calling all employees back into the office full time.
The mandate would require five-day in-office attendance for the bank's 300,000 global workforce. A formal announcement is expected in the coming weeks, though the decision isn't finalized, Bloomberg reports.
Roughly 60% of JPMorgan staff, including managing directors, retail employees and traders, are already back in the office full time due to an April 2023 mandate. The remaining 40% were operating on a three-day hybrid model unless approved by senior management, which would be eliminated with the new policy.
CEO Jamie Dimon has been outspoken for years about being against remote work, saying office presence encourages diversity and better decision-making. When the 2023 mandate was announced, a corresponding memo said leaders should be visible, accessible and “lead by example” by coming into the office.
Banks have been leading the RTO charge since last year. In May, Citigroup, Barclays and HSBC were among those that called employees back into the office, whether on a full-time basis or hybrid schedule.
Those decisions came after the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority reintroduced prepandemic rules surrounding workplace monitoring. While pandemic-era regulations were made to ensure legal compliance within home offices, the cost of monitoring is high, which could have sealed the deal for those financial firms.
Companies are getting their hopes up for 2025 to be the year of the return-to-office shift. More than half of respondents to a Bisnow survey said they expect Kastle Systems’ Back to Work Barometer, which measures in-office attendance across top cities, will tip over 60% of prepandemic levels this year. The barometer hovered around the 50% mark through 2024. A fall 2024 survey by KPMG found 83% of execs expected their companies to roll out an RTO mandate in 2025, and a slew of companies, including Amazon and AT&T, announced stricter rules that took effect last week.
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