Sorry, Jamie, but WFH isn’t the disaster you say it is

You can think of the high tension that exists in the work-from-home (WFH) versus return-to-office (RTO) debate as a bit like a cyclone, constantly twisting and intensifying with each passing week. And right at the centre, creating news and absorbing much of the impact sits one solitary man: Jamie Dimon.

Dimon is the 68-year-old chairman and chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, the global financial business that manages assets of $US3.2 trillion worldwide. There are a few things you need to know about Jamie: he’s been chief executive for almost 20 years, he leads 317,000 employees, and he expresses strong opinions without caring who disagrees with him.

JPMorgan chief executive Jamie Dimon is growing frustrated at his employees’ work habits.Credit: Bloomberg

In recent times, Dimon has become the unofficial global leader of the return-to-office movement, praised by employers who love his intensely direct approach to management and scalded by employees for the same thing.

After half a decade of flexibility, Dimon last week raged that WFH is “semi-diseased shit” when explaining his directive to order all his employees back to the office five days a week from next month.

One brave staff member brought on the tirade. Nick Welch, sitting front-row of an all-staff meeting in Columbus, Ohio, last Wednesday, put his hand up to question the wisdom of changing company policy after it had helped them navigate a successful path through the COVID years.

“I’m not suggesting you rescind such an order,” he said, “but suggesting it be left up to managers of individual teams themselves on the necessity of an office workplace.”

The biggest fallacy barked by insistent CEOs is that WFH is less efficient than being in an office.

As colleagues around him applauded, Dimon was quick to respond, rattling through his list of reasons why he’s certain that it no longer works. First, the blame fell on his leaders. “There is no chance that I would leave that up to managers. Zero chance,” he began.

Then, the reasoning shifted to protecting young workers. “The young generation is being damaged by this … they are being left behind socially, ideas, meeting people.”

Next, it was the fault of the behaviour of staff during Zoom calls. “A lot of you were on the f---ing Zoom and doing the following, OK? Looking at your mail. Sending texts to each other about what an arsehole the other person is. Not paying attention, not reading your stuff … you don’t do that in my goddamn meetings.”

His final excuse was productivity, which he claims had decreased based on personal experience. “Don’t give me this shit that work-from-home Friday works. I call a lot of people on Friday, and there’s not a goddamn person you can get a hold of.”

So it’s obvious that Dimon likes using swear words to punctuate his points, but what’s the reality behind each of his reasons?

The truth is that WFH does shift some of the responsibility from managers to individual employees to work autonomously without someone looking over their shoulder. Of course, there will be a minority who waste time at home, just like there’s a minority who wastes time in the office.

WFH is built on trust and transparency, and if you can’t give your colleagues that, it’s already doomed for failure.

His second concern is younger workers, with Dimon saying he knows exactly what the next generation needs. But has he actually asked them?

If he does, he might find that recent Gallup research showed nearly two-thirds of Gen Z workers who were able to work remotely said they preferred a hybrid environment (compared to 60 per cent of Millennials, 58 per cent of Gen X and 56 per cent of Baby Boomers). Yes, there are many benefits to being in an office, but you can still get most of them a few days a week.

Dimon’s third reason was his staff’s bad behaviour on Zoom, which is a red herring that can be better solved through policies and training.

And the final excuse, often quoted, is productivity. The biggest fallacy barked by insistent CEOs is that WFH is less efficient than being in an office when the reality is a lot more nuanced than that.

You can find research to prove either side of the argument, but an analysis of several recent studies by researchers José María Barrero, Nicholas Bloom and Steven Davis concluded that working from home one or two days a week improves productivity and leads to happier employees.

And that is really it in a nutshell: productivity and happiness. They are two of the key things a chief executive should be trying to solve – but good luck trying to get that through to the man at the centre of the tornado, who often seems to enjoy the storm more than the outcomes.

Tim Duggan is the author of Work Backwards: The Revolutionary Method to Work Smarter and Live Better. He writes a regular newsletter at timduggan.substack.com

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