Date: 2025-08-21 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028035
WORKPLACE CHANGE
BACK TO 5-DAY IN-OFFICE
Jamie Dimon: ‘Don’t give me this s‑‑‑ that work-from-home Friday works’
BACK TO 5-DAY IN-OFFICE
Jamie Dimon: ‘Don’t give me this s‑‑‑ that work-from-home Friday works’
Jamie Dimon ... CEO Chase Manhattan Bank
Original article: https://thehill.com/business/5145522-jamie-dimon-jp-morgan-chase-return-to-work/
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Jamie Dimon is a lot younger than I am. Given that, I am surprised that he seems so out of touch with the quality of life issues that are at the core of the work-at-home movement.
I studied economics ... among other things ... at Cambridge University in the UK at the end of the 1950s. Several prominent economists at the time were expecting modern business productivity to deliver a 3 day work week in the relatively near future ... say over the next 5 or 10 years!
Fast forward about 70 years and we now find more people doing 2 jobs and working 80 hours a week because corporate leadership is beholden to the single and wrong idea that corporate profit is the one and only goal of a corporate organization.
I thought Jamie Dimon had a brain ... now I am not so sure! He seems to be parroting something he was taught at business school and worked very well some decades back, but there have been changes that need to be understood. I may be 85, but I 'get it' that lifestyle has been changing significantly over my adult lifetime expecially in terms of work/life balance. Big business needs to wake up and start to understand how to optimise in the new reality! There have been big changes for everyone, but especially for women who are expected to do much more at home as mothers than the men ... while, in the modern day, also carrying a full load at work! To add insult to injury, a lot of men are finding that competing with women on a level playing field is tough, and mostly the women win! Men may have bigger muscles, but in the modern world of 'brain' work, the women are at a huge advantage!
Big bosses like Jamie Dimon need to wake up. It is 2025, after all!
Peter Burgess
Written by Ashleigh Fields
02/14/25 11:43 AM ET
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon scolded employees Wednesday in Columbus, Ohio, during a fiery internal town hall, after workers raised concerns with the bank’s five-day return-to-office policy, according to audio reviewed by The Hill.
“It simply doesn’t work,” Dimon said, referring to policies that allow employees to work remotely. “And it doesn’t work for creativity. It slows down decisionmaking.”
“And don’t give me the s‑‑‑ that ‘work from home Friday’ works. I call a lot of people on Friday. There’s not a goddamn person to get a hold of,” he added during the meeting.
Some staffers at the nation’s largest bank joined forces to sign a petition urging the CEO not to remove hybrid workdays. However, Dimon condemned the effort while claiming that work-from-home opportunities are harming the next generation of workers.
“The young generation is being damaged by this. That may or may not be in your particular staff, but they are being left behind,” he said during the event.
“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,” the CEO added.
Dimon’s comments drew issues with worker efficiency. His move to require full in-person attendance follow President Trump’s executive order directing federal employees to physically return to offices for work immediately. He has also defended Trump’s tariff threats.
“You don’t have to work at JP Morgan. So, the people of you who don’t want to work at the company, that’s fine with me,” Dimon told the crowd. “I’m not mad at you. Don’t be mad at me.”
“It’s a free country. You can walk on your feet. But this company is going to set our own standards and do it our own way. And I’ve had it with this kind of stuff,” he added.
JPMorgan Chase did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
The company, which employs more than 300,000 workers, plans to lay off fewer than 1,000 people in February and plans to announce additional cuts in mid-March, May, June, August, and September, according to reports from Barrons.
Tags Donald Trump Jamie Dimon JPMorgan Chase remote workdays return-to-work Reuters Trump administration Trump tariff threat
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