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JPMorgan reportedly ending remote work for more than 300k employees

forbes.com

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Re: JPMorgan reportedly ending remote work for more than 300k employees

#31

Post by lefstathiou »

michaelhoney wrote: post #3

"JPMorgan’s leader believes that when employees are inside the office working together (instead of remotely or for a few in-person days here and there) the company and its employees experience greater levels of innovation, creativity and teamwork." tell me about the innovations you've pioneered, Jamie

I believe JPM earns a ~40-50% higher return on equity than almost every other retail bank, which is extraordinary given the scale of their lending. Among banking CEOs, Jamie is regarded as one of the greatest of all time. If anyone else could achieve these results, they would. The Swiss certainly can’t.

The systems, processes, culture and technology necessary to achieve that is breathtaking at their scale. They spend billions on software engineering a year. I interact with their fintech team routinely - dedicated solely to innovation - and I’m told it comprises hundreds of people globally (I’ve only met several dozen). They’ve created so many tools that power so many parts of financial markets I can’t fit descriptions of them into this window of HN. Short of maybe their private placements and equity IPO division, I can’t think of one that doesn’t deal in trillions of dollars in flow monthly (fx and settlements do this daily) which is hundreds of times the scale of the GDP of the nation of Tasmania, per day.

Re: JPMorgan reportedly ending remote work for more than 300k employees

#32

Post by evujumenuk »

threatofrain wrote: post #23
bdndndndbve wrote: post #18

People have theorized that RTO mandates are shadow layoffs, but I think they might actually be commercial real estate investors trying to prop up the office market. If large companies are able to force RTO those working conditions will trickle down to smaller employers, which will stop the bleeding of tenants for small and midsized buildings. Those commercial office buildings are owned by REITs and investment banks.…

IMO remote work should be evaluated on a role-by-role basis because remote team coordination really is that much harder. The prima facie incentives actually lean hard in the direction of employers because you access the global market of developers, driving down cost big time and real estate is expensive. Thus remote coordination is so hard... that employers would rather pay for expensive real estate and expensive tal…

So what you're implying is that for roles where other companies do have managed to establish functioning remote work protocols, we should interpret RTO mandates as a public display of organizational dysfunction if they were unable to emulate those within the span of, oh, five years?

Also I'm pretty sure employers don't generally pay for, or care about, the commute times of employees…

Re: JPMorgan reportedly ending remote work for more than 300k employees

#33

Post by saagarjha »

t-writescode wrote: post #21
monero-xmr wrote: post #16

Remote work is the absolute easiest way to hire the best people for cheap. I love when more companies go RTO, the startups can get more talent.

We need to get more startups, then. So many software devs have been forced RTO or laid off and I haven’t heard of many new companies that aren’t crypto scams or dubiously and maybe-legal gambling sites. Admittedly, I’m trying to start my own company and can’t afford employees (and refuse to take VC money); but I figured we’d see plenty more companies with all the layoffs.

I have bad news for the kind of company ‘monero-xmr is interested in.

Re: JPMorgan reportedly ending remote work for more than 300k employees

#34

Post by tootie »

t-writescode wrote: post #29
tootie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really doesn't seem plausible. Why would JPM bother propping up commercial real estate? I think the answer is much simpler. Jamie Dimon is very opinionated and conservative and wants people back in the office because thinks they're slacking off at home.

Our entire banking system is built on trusting that companies and individuals will keep paying their loans. If enough people don’t want commercial real estate, then those empty buildings will, at least for businesses, eventually start to default because they have no money. At least that’s my “off the top of my head” theory. It doesn’t change the fact that the US’s car-centric, NIMBY, segregated behavior has resulted…

Commercial real estate bottomed already. The market isn't going to collapse. Besides they obviously didn't make any similar hedges when it was residential real estate in 2007. Nor does it make sense for them to spend hundreds of millions on real estate so they can not lose money. There is no 4d chess. It's just old people making bad decisions.

Re: JPMorgan reportedly ending remote work for more than 300k employees

#35

Post by Thaxll »

michaelhoney wrote: post #3

"JPMorgan’s leader believes that when employees are inside the office working together (instead of remotely or for a few in-person days here and there) the company and its employees experience greater levels of innovation, creativity and teamwork." tell me about the innovations you've pioneered, Jamie

I've been working in IT for the last 15 years and there is nothing that will replace sitting next to your colleague to discuss something, doing a call on teams/zoom is absolutly not the same.

Remote work is fine for 2-3 days a week, full remote is absolutly worse than 2 days of social interaction.

Re: JPMorgan reportedly ending remote work for more than 300k employees

#36

Post by llamaimperative »

Thaxll wrote: post #35
michaelhoney wrote: post #3

"JPMorgan’s leader believes that when employees are inside the office working together (instead of remotely or for a few in-person days here and there) the company and its employees experience greater levels of innovation, creativity and teamwork." tell me about the innovations you've pioneered, Jamie

I've been working in IT for the last 15 years and there is nothing that will replace sitting next to your colleague to discuss something, doing a call on teams/zoom is absolutly not the same. Remote work is fine for 2-3 days a week, full remote is absolutly worse than 2 days of social interaction.

The alternative for most people isn’t sitting next to their colleagues. It’s calling their colleague on Teams, but both sides of the call are sitting in offices instead of at home. Worst of all worlds.

Re: JPMorgan reportedly ending remote work for more than 300k employees

#37

Post by spacemanspiff01 »

evujumenuk wrote: post #32
threatofrain wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO remote work should be evaluated on a role-by-role basis because remote team coordination really is that much harder. The prima facie incentives actually lean hard in the direction of employers because you access the global market of developers, driving down cost big time and real estate is expensive. Thus remote coordination is so hard... that employers would rather pay for expensive real estate and expensive tal…

So what you're implying is that for roles where other companies do have managed to establish functioning remote work protocols, we should interpret RTO mandates as a public display of organizational dysfunction if they were unable to emulate those within the span of, oh, five years? Also I'm pretty sure employers don't generally pay for, or care about, the commute times of employees…

Yes, especially for something creative and collaborative like engineering. Creating a culture where remote work works as well as in person is hard, and takes explicit effort and buying from management.

Re: JPMorgan reportedly ending remote work for more than 300k employees

#39

Post by danpalmer »

lefstathiou wrote: post #31
michaelhoney wrote: post #3

"JPMorgan’s leader believes that when employees are inside the office working together (instead of remotely or for a few in-person days here and there) the company and its employees experience greater levels of innovation, creativity and teamwork." tell me about the innovations you've pioneered, Jamie

I believe JPM earns a ~40-50% higher return on equity than almost every other retail bank, which is extraordinary given the scale of their lending. Among banking CEOs, Jamie is regarded as one of the greatest of all time. If anyone else could achieve these results, they would. The Swiss certainly can’t. The systems, processes, culture and technology necessary to achieve that is breathtaking at their scale. They spend…

At my university, JPMorgan were well known for sweeping up the bottom ~10% of each cohort. I'd never work there based on the people I know who went there, they were the students that just didn't get it. My interactions with their recruiting at conferences solidified this somewhat, as it seemed to be a graduate sweat shop with no skills development beyond what was necessary to ship the next bit of code that was legacy tech debt at the point it shipped.

> tell me about the innovations you've pioneered, Jamie

So I'd say the innovation is having a productive (at a business level) IT org despite the awful software engineering. The software engineer in me says that they're in a local-optimum that costs more than it needs to because they need so many people to achieve what they do given their terrible tech, but I can't really justify this. Its organisations like this that make me really consider whether doing engineering well does actually matter.

Re: JPMorgan reportedly ending remote work for more than 300k employees

#40

Post by zxcvbn4038 »

Jamie Dimon's "office" is a 2,500 sq. ft. apartment on Park Avenue in New York. It's paid for by the company, and he lives there with his wife during the week. It's so hypocritical that the guy pushing hardest for a return to work is himself working from home every day.
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