The nation's largest bank is preparing to boomerang back to a pre-pandemic routine that requires employees to commute to an office all five days of the workweek.
JPMorgan Chase & Co., with more than 300,000 employees around the world, is looking to expand its in-person requirement as it and other corporate heavyweights throughout the United States become increasingly eager to get workers back to the office more regularly. The escalated mandate, reported earlier by Bloomberg, has yet to be formally announced but would effectively end the bank's flexible work policy.
A JPMorgan spokesperson declined to comment to CoStar News on the company's intended policy change. However, he said that about 70% of the financial institution's employees were already back in the office on a Monday through Friday schedule, while the remaining portion of its workforce reported to a physical outpost three to four days per week.
If and when enacted, the five-day requirement would close the book on a flexible work policy that has been gradually rolled back to pre-pandemic schedules, something JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has long been pushing for as an outspoken critic of remote work.
In mid-2021, the bank was among the first to begin calling some employees back on a rolling basis. By April 2022, about half of its workforce was expected to be in the office five days a week.
"As we've returned to more normal patterns in our lives and work, we can all appreciate the many benefits of in-person engagement, [and] this is especially true when it comes to the importance of being in the office," JPMorgan's operating committee wrote in a 2023 memo requiring all managing directors to return to the office five days a week. "Being together in person is the best way to build and strengthen our culture — the very thing that makes our company special."
Push to boost attendance
From corporate giants to smaller professional services firms, employers across the country are stepping up their in-person requirements in an attempt to move past the pandemic-related shift toward increased flexible work arrangements. Office market stakeholders point to the escalated mandates, many of which take effect in 2025, as a signal that demand for office space will be on the rebound after years of depressed leasing activity.
Large employers such as Amazon, Starbucks, AT&T, Southwest Airlines and Walmart have recently stepped up their in-person requirements, and many employers are now demanding workers commute to an office all five days of the workweek.
Escalated mandates have fueled optimism among national office landlords looking to retain their portfolio occupancy as tenants slashed real estate to both trim costs and adjust to flexible, post-pandemic work policies.
The combination of depressed demand, stagnant leasing and ongoing flexible work has helped push the national office vacancy rate to a record high of about 14%, according to CoStar data. Tenants have collectively handed back roughly 210 million square feet of office space since the start of 2020, with tepid demand expected to prolong any effort to revert to pre-pandemic levels of occupancy.
For JPMorgan, the push to boost in-person attendance is critical given its outsize investment in expanding its office real estate portfolio.
The New York-based bank, one of the city's largest employers, is nearing the finish line on a development set to house its new global headquarters at 270 Park Ave. in midtown Manhattan. The roughly 2.5 million-square-foot project, slated to complete construction later this year, is designed to accommodate about 14,000 employees who will have access to a slew of amenities such as outdoor lounges, a fitness center, a meditation room and an upscale food hall.
JPMorgan occupies upward of 27 million square feet of office space around the world, according to CoStar data, a footprint spread across more than 700 outposts.