JP Morgan employee gets 'fired' for questioning CEO on return-to-office rule

Tensions are growing as employees are trying to push back against rigid return-to-office policies at major corporations, it seems. Employees believe they have worked out ways to work efficiently with flexible work arrangements and working from office will not improve productivity in any way.

Fired for a brief while

A JPMorgan Chase employee got a bitter taste of what can happen if one pushes back against return-to-office policies.

The employee Nicolas Welch got obstensibly 'fired' from his job though it was only for a brief time. His crime: he had questioned the CEO Jamie Dimon about the bank’s return-to-office (RTO) policy during a town hall meeting on February 12.

However, the employee, Nicolas Welch’s termination was revoked after higher management intervened, said a report in Forbes.

Also read: Senior's admonition at workplace is not a criminal offence: SC

Questioning new mandate

Welch, an analyst in tech operations has been an employee of JP Morgan Chase since 2017. Like many others in his office, he was unhappy with the bank’s new mandate that required all the 317,000 employees to return to the office five days a week starting next month.

Forty-per cent of the workforce had been allowed to work from home two days a week until now. Welch, who is going through a divorce said he had family and childcare responsibilities and questioned Dimon at the town hall meeting about the return-to-office diktat.

Firstly, thanking Dimon for “listening to an old hillbilly like me", he explained how his team comprises seven employees across different countries like Argentina, India, and the United States and how they work in different time zones. He suggested: “There is no way that being in an office makes any difference for us specifically. So, all I’m asking is that I’m not suggesting you rescind such an order but suggesting it be left up to managers of individual teams themselves on [the] necessity of an office workplace.”

Many of his coworkers applauded his remarks and even later dubbed him as “the voice of America”. However, Dimon refused to accept his idea.

Also read: Economic Survey I 'Long work hours, adverse effects'

No chance, says CEO

He categorically said that there is “no chance” he would leave that decision upto managers.

“Zero chance. The abuse that took place was extraordinary,” said Dimon, according to the report. Dimon, who is a long-time critic of hybrid work, was referring to inefficiencies that he felt was due to remote work. He further criticised employees for wasting time on Zoom meetings and noted that the bank’s headcount had ballooned to 50,000 in the past few years because people hired to do the job was not doing them.

Further, the CEO responding to a petition signed by employees urging the bank to reconsider the mandate, said, “I don’t care how many people sign that f---ing petition.”

Asked to leave

Shortly after the town hall, Welch was summoned by Garrett Monaghan, a Vice President in JPMorgan Chase’s Technology Employee Support Services (TESS) and castigated him for “dragging their whole organszation through the mud” and ordered him to leave. Welch gathered his belongings and left.

It was later in the evening, according to the report, JPMorgan Chase’s executive director of global IT support, contacted Welch to inform him that he still had his job. She assured him that she had “smoothed things over” with Monaghan, who later sent Welch a text apologising for the incident and offering a beer and a handshake. He didn’t say anything wrong in the town hall,” a company spokesperson told Fortune.

However, Welch told the media that remains frustrated over the ordeal and the workplace climate under the return-to-work mandate.