JPMorgan Chase employees believe their work-life balance and health and well-being declined following the bank’s decision to return to office full-time in March, Barron’s reports. Based on an internal survey released this week of 90% of the workforce, the aforementioned areas scored lowest, alongside opportunities for internal mobility.
My company did a forced RTO. Moral dropped. In one category, it dropped to 14%. We couldn’t hire anyone and people were quitting. Our president kept saying “We will never return to WFH.”
Less than 6 months after he said that, we went fully remote. The whole RTO thing lasted about a year before they gave up.
What is it about CEOs that makes this the ego power trip issue for them?
That was the point. It’s an unstructured layoff, where they create conditions that will force people to quit which reduces costs. But it does not carry the same scrutiny and regulation of a formal layoff.
Edit: The other factor I think is causing these return to office requirements, is that the venn diagram of commercial real estate investors and sitting corporate board members is a circle.
Investors should be demanding the paper trail for how these RTO decisions are made. It’s going to hurt a company’s ability to hire the best candidates in the long run and that’s going to affect profits.
