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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

#61

Post by bdndndndbve »

ksec wrote: post #48
tootie wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>Commercial real estate bottomed already I think you are under estimating the problem with Commercial real estate, along with rental around the city that has on adjacent Commercial real estate pricing. Which also has a knock on effect on other financial instruments. The situation wont change or pops the Commercial real estate value to where it was. But it should hopefully buy some time for the market to solve itself.…

There's a good Money Stuff episode about this btw. They talked to someone whose job is to assess commercial properties on behalf of investment funds. There's a lot of obvious tricks that places use to make their occupancy seem better, but the guest's take was that only S-tier malls and office buildings are worth the asking price.

My local B-tier regional mall for instance has about 50% occupancy, and a lot of that is pop-up stores that seem to be entirely transient. They have an anchor Wal Mart, a bank and a mobile phone store, but no other noteworthy tenants. Around the holiday season it felt pretty empty. It's amazing they can afford to operate such a large building under the circumstances.

There's 2-3 other similar malls within a 30 minute drive. All of these malls are still being held by REITs or retirement funds at inflated valuations waiting for a recovery that isn't coming.

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

#62

Post by lefstathiou »

michaelhoney wrote: post #58
lefstathiou wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

My point is that JPM has been a net negative in the world. I have no doubt that they have innovated in financial markets. They have also innovated in their adherence to the law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JPMorgan_Chase#Lawsuits_and_le...

Yes indeed. Jamie publicly mentions often how onerous regulations are and how much it’s impacting their ability to operate and innovate.

If I had a magic wand, I would reduce concentration of capital in the banking sector. American regulators seem to prefer regulating a fewer # of large banks over many smaller banks, which tend to be harder to control and oversee and are more prone to failure.

Way off topic but I see merit to Glass Steagall act which barred consumer banks from engaging in investment banking activity. The issue is that for it to work, Europe and Asia would need to adopt the same legislation.

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

#63

Post by threatofrain »

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 employers do care about commute. Commute time is one of the leading predictors of turnover, and it has a more dramatic effect on employee happiness vs higher salary. Also, it's de facto culture for programmers to work a little everywhere, on and off the clock (I'm not saying that's right, but it's reality).

A certain well known big defense company used to subsidize rent if you agreed to live closer.

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

#65

Post by bdangubic »

josephcsible wrote: post #64

Why haven't any environmentalist politicians tried to pass bills to discourage this, e.g., an "unnecessary commute tax" of $500 per employee per workday that could have been remote but that management required to be in the office?

In America??? That is funny and also sad that it is funny…

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

#66

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

mingus88 wrote: post #60
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.…

Amazon is full RTO in my city and there are now lines down the block for the food trucks this week at lunchtime. I’m sure every business owner is conspiring together to get those captive office workers back in city centers where their wages can be siphoned.

This is definitely the case in Seattle, where every news story about Amazon RTO seems to feature a restaurant owner or business association praising Amazon and ignoring that they’re really just stealing from the employees who lose 1-2 hours to commuting each day.

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

#67

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

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.

A regular commute and having to live in one of a few cities only is absolutely worse than full remote more time and more freedom.

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

#68

Post by apple4ever »

lefstathiou wrote: post #59
gaws wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great, but where does requiring your entire workforce to return to the office five days a week in the years since a global pandemic fundamentally changed the way white-collar work is done fit into that?

I believe this decision suggests that the worlds top banker of the worlds top bank, whose assets under management are greater than the wealth of most nations on earth, seems to believe that the fundamental change in the way white collar work is done post pandemic, is either not conducive to achieving a culture he desires or to garnering the level of performance he is targeting for his company. My first reaction is no…

I would suggest one doesn't have anything to do with the other.

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

#69

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

lefstathiou wrote: post #59
gaws wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's great, but where does requiring your entire workforce to return to the office five days a week in the years since a global pandemic fundamentally changed the way white-collar work is done fit into that?

I believe this decision suggests that the worlds top banker of the worlds top bank, whose assets under management are greater than the wealth of most nations on earth, seems to believe that the fundamental change in the way white collar work is done post pandemic, is either not conducive to achieving a culture he desires or to garnering the level of performance he is targeting for his company. My first reaction is no…

Control over capital to a highly centralized degree makes their (Jamie’s) job easier. I’m not sure I would blindly call that “demonstrably competent”. The banking system is also held up by the government and the reserve system and regulations that make competition low, so it isn’t like some theoretical perfectly competitive space.

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

#70

Post by ryandrake »

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.…

That theory has always seemed to me like the tail wagging the dog--a relatively small tail (commercial real estate) wagging a big dog (trillion dollar companies). If you look at the balance sheet of these companies, real property is significant, but almost always far from the largest investment they have made.
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