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On Monday last week, JPMorgan Chase’s controversial return-to-office finally came into effect, after weeks of back and forth between disgruntled employees and insistent executives.
In the two months since reports of the mandate first broke, JPMorgan staff have rallied against the move with a petition signed by roughly 1,000 employees. CEO Jamie Dimon has swearily smacked the movement down – “I don’t care how many people sign that F***ing petition” – and then subsequently apologized for his four-letter outburst.
With the first week of the new in-office arrangement now under the belt, there has not been time for the bank’s executives to breathe a collective sigh of relief.
From the (anticipated) desk capacity concerns to issues including spotty WiFi, sick colleagues, and noise complaints, the problems have been coming thick and fast, according to a Fortune report.
‘Definitely aren’t enough desks’ – JPMorgan faces return-to-office challenges
Increasing the amount of time a global workforce of 300,000 employees spends in the office from three days a week to five days a week has, understandably, created some logistical headaches.
While there are plans for a state-of-the-art $3billion global HQ in Manhattan later this year, most offices reportedly lack the desk space to accommodate the influx of staff.
There is a ‘first come, first serve’ system at several major offices, Fortune reported, citing workers familiar with the matter. Before email inboxes can be opened, employees must apparently embark on a quest for desk space.
“There definitely aren’t enough desks for everyone so people have to hope others are taking PTO that day to get a seat,” one JPMorgan employee said, adding that their team resorted to turfing other employees out of their desk space.
Another employee said their team was “forced to have to sit apart from one another.” Hardly the news chief exec Dimon – who has said that in-office work is good for teamwork and mentorship – would be hoping for.
Other staff reported the battle for desks is causing some unwanted cultural effects, with many staff now arriving early to secure seats and leaving personal items or paper signs to “unofficially reserve” desks.
“You could just tell folks that got there later were feeling a bit off-kilter,” one individual said.
JPMorgan anticipated difficulties with accommodating staff. According to earlier reports, only three-fifths of JP Morgan’s offices across its Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) divisions have enough desk space to accommodate all of its staff full-time, while London-based workers were told in February they would not have to return to the office until additional desk space is available. The vast majority, however, were still expected back in-office in line with the mandate from last week.
Other employers to call staff back to the office full-time have also encountered logistical difficulties, including Amazon, which postponed its mandate for some staff due to insufficient office capacity in some locations.
JPMorgan staff complain about noise, coughing, & spotty WiFi
Desk wars aside, JPMorgan staff have also complained about office noise levels.
An insufficient number of meeting rooms is reportedly leading to many workers taking Zooms calls at their desks, one employee said: “People don’t know how loud they are on Zooms and, of course, if you have a dozen people Zooming then you’re going to hear all of that.”
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Moreover, while the workers who spoke to Fortune said there’s plenty of socializing, distracting noise levels are compounded by another potential problem—some of the staffers said many employees have come into the office despite being sick. One employee complained about working next to a colleague who was “coughing and sneezing all day long.”
There have also been reports of WiFi only working intermittently or not at all, in one case leading to a group of employees being told to work from home for the day until it was fixed. “That was an entire day wasted,” one said.
For some, the frustrations have been tricky to ignore: “The office is loud, crowded, and overall not an enjoyable place to be,” another employee told Fortune.
