JPMorgan orders senior bankers to work 5 days a week in the office

JPMorgan Chase is asking its managing directors to be in the office five days a week and warned other employees not to fall short of their “in-office attendance expectations”. 

The move by the biggest US bank applies to its global workforce of roughly 294,000 employees and underscores how Wall Street is working to pull staff back to the office, having tolerated more flexible working following the Covid-19 pandemic.

Other banks such as Goldman Sachs have also been trying to get staff to return to the office five days a week.

“Our leaders play a critical role in reinforcing our culture and running our businesses,” JPMorgan’s operating committee wrote in an internal memo to staff on Wednesday, a copy of which was seen by the Financial Times.

“They have to be visible on the floor, they must meet with clients, they need to teach and advise, and they should always be accessible for immediate feedback and impromptu meetings.”

A bank spokesman confirmed the contents of the memo.

Other employees are required to be in the office for a minimum of three days a week, unless their role requires them to be in the office five days a week in areas such as sales and trading or at JPMorgan’s bank branches.

JPMorgan said in the memo that there were “a number of employees who aren’t meeting their in-office attendance expectations, and that must change”. The operating committee said that failure to do so would result in “appropriate performance management steps, which could include corrective action”.

JPMorgan argued to staff that being in the office improves the speed of decision making and helps foster spontaneous learning and creativity. “We also believe that being together in person is the best way to build and strengthen our culture,” the memo said.

Wall Street banks had to grapple with remote work in the first year of the pandemic, a challenge for an industry that is heavily regulated and whose leaders champion an apprenticeship culture of on-the-job learning.

JPMorgan started bringing US staff back to the office on a more regular basis in July 2021 as the health threat of the pandemic receded. However, many employees expressed a reluctance to return to the office full time, with their argument for a hybrid model strengthened by record profits and a fierce battle for banking talent.

As profits fell and hiring slowed, employees have come under growing pressure to return to the office on a more regular basis.