Jamie Dimon grew to become the most recent billionaire to CEO to rail in opposition to distant work and search to drive workers again into the workplace full time.
He went on an indignant rant in a JPMorgan Chase city corridor assembly the place he claimed that being collectively within the workplace is the ONLY technique to be inventive and productive as a result of there you possibly can talk and collaborate in particular person.
He additionally rejected a petition signed by 1000’s of his workers seeking to protect hybrid work, saying that he didn’t care how many individuals signed it and including this:
Now, you could have a alternative. You don’t must work at JP Morgan. So the folks of you who don’t need to work on the firm, that’s fantastic with me. I’m not mad at you. Don’t be mad at me. It’s a free nation.
However right here’s what Jamie’s ignoring: Whereas there are positively some benefits to in-office work he’s fully forgetting that even when workers are bodily current within the workplace, most coordination and collaboration nonetheless occurs over digital channels like e mail, chat, cellphone calls, discord, slack, zoom or no matter.
You don’t go to a coworker’s desk and interrupt their workflow each time you need assistance with one thing. You don’t name a gathering each time you could have a query. You don’t go to your supervisor’s workplace each time you should decide. Or at the least, I actually, actually hope you don’t!
So when some folks rail in opposition to distant work arguing that there’s simply no means folks can collaborate properly and be productive, they’re fully ignoring simply how digital the bodily workplace already is.
Probably the most hilarious a part of Dimon’s rant is that he has since apologized for it. Not for maligning his distant staff. Not for claiming that they’re all slacking once they do business from home. No – he apologized for cursing.
Jamie, Jamie, Jamie… the issue was not you dropping some F-bombs. The issue was your full incapacity to belief your workers and to acknowledge that there are extra methods of working successfully than simply yours.
