It seems every week we hear about another company rolling back their remote work policy. Before 2025, the reasons often cited company culture, but more recently executives have been open about their concerns that remote work is less productive. Emboldened by the Trump administration’s continued unfounded claims of remote workers not working, large companies have begun to force the end of remote work. An increasingly apparent point of friction, employees are making it clear that by and large, they don’t want to go back.
Anyone who has worked a remote job in the past five years knows there is some merit to the skepticism around reduced productivity. Like any perk offered to employees, there will be a minority of individuals who take advantage of the trust they’re given. What these mandates fail to address is the fact that productivity itself has been transformed in the age of remote work, to the point where classifying remote work as a “perk” is overly simplistic.
Most Americans struggle to afford renting a two-bedroom apartment, and far fewer own a home, so working remotely often means working in a crowded or distracting setting. There are also significant health implications to remote working in a stressful environment, especially when the workspace is your bedroom. Considering the modern "9-to-5" often includes an expectation of availability via email or Slack, day and night, traditional ideas of reasonable productivity have already been rendered obsolete.
When JPMorgan Chase announced a return-to-office last month, the March start date shocked and upset many employees. Over 1300 of them signed a petition advocating against the mandate, to which CEO Jamie Dimon responded in an internal town hall, “I don’t care how many people sign that f****** petition.” Dimon followed this up with concerns about employees not paying attention in meetings and being generally unproductive at home. Curiously, JPMorgan Chase saw record profits in 2024, leaving employees and customers wondering what “unproductive” means to Dimon.
JPMorgan Chase’s new NYC office is set to open this year, with office space for almost half of their 30,000 employees. It’s far more than just office space, however, with a laundry list of features and perks available to employees on-site. These range from evidence-backed amenities like abundant natural lighting, healthy food options, and high-quality air filtration, to exorbitant and bizarre office luxuries like personalizable smart lighting in conference rooms and direct-to-your-desk meal delivery service. Given the cost of the new office sitting in the billions of dollars, the question remains whether these features outrank remote work in terms of cost versus benefits. Based on the CEO’s sentiments about petitions, it’s likely that the type of Voice of the Employee data that would illuminate employee’s priorities is not available.
On-site office perks can be motivating and connect employees to the greater sense of collaboration that comes with a solid company culture. Where many corporations go wrong, however, is the solution to simply throw money at amenities that sound attractive and luxurious, rather than making decisions informed by employee feedback. Listening to your employees’ preferences and desires might uncover that their motivating drivers are flexibility, trust, and autonomy, which, when supported by remote work, carry a much lower cost than a multi-billion dollar skyscraper.
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