JPMorgan is reducing its office space while continuing to implement a hybrid work model. The bank is currently marketing space in their Manhattan office. However, JPMorgan CEO, Jamie Dimon, recently stated that the company is not going remote after the pandemic.
It is not news that more and more companies, from startups to big-sized corporations, are announcing what their upcoming measures will be when offices start re-opening. After going through 2020’s remote experiment, most of them have decided to implement to some extent remote work policies.
JPMorgan in the Post-Pandemic Scenario
The New York-based bank is reducing office space in two Manhattan towers as some staff will be shifting towards a part-time remote work arrangement. However, according to Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan CEO, transitioning to a fully hybrid model is not part of their plans.
In his annual shareholder letter, he outlined how JPMorgan adapted to the global pandemic, successfully transitioning their different areas to a remote work environment. And while the virtuality worked and they successfully maintained their productivity last year, remote work is not in the bank’s vision for the long run.
During his letter, he announced how the firm’s onsite versus remote work would work out in the near future:
Generally speaking, we envision a model that will find many employees working in a location full-time would include nearly all of the employees in our retail bank branches, as well as jobs in check processing, vaults, lockbox, sales and trading, critical operations functions, and facilities, amenities, security, medical staff, and many others. Some employees will be working under a hybrid model (e.g., some days per week in a location and the other days at home). And a small percentage of employees, maybe 10%, will possibly be working full-time home for very specific roles.Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan CEO
Weaknesses of the Virtual Model
In the same shareholder letter, Dimon explained the main reasons why the remote work model had weaknesses that businesses should take into consideration in the long term:
- Performing jobs remotely is more successful when people know one another and already have a large body of existing work to do. It does not work as well when people don’t know one another.
- Most professionals learn their job through an apprenticeship model, which is almost impossible to replicate in the Zoom world. Over time, this drawback could dramatically undermine the character and culture you want to promote in your company.
- A heavy reliance on Zoom meetings actually slows down decision-making because there is little immediate follow-up.
- And remote work virtually eliminates 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.”
While some American businesses continue adapting and innovating their working structure, big corporations like JPMorgan and Google have announced that they still want to maintain the onsite model as the primary way of working in the long run.