Jamie Dimon: I should never curse. But we’re going back to the office

(CNN) — Jamie Dimon is apologizing for using some particularly salty language about work-from-home policies, after he tackled an increasingly combative issue for workers and employers across the United States. But he’s not backing down on requiring JPMorgan Chase employees to return to the office.

The CEO of America’s largest bank told CNBC Monday that he grew frustrated when an employee at a Columbus, Ohio, town hall two weeks ago asked about a petition signed by more than 1,000 employees that demanded the company keep its hybrid work model in place.

In response to the employee’s question, Dimon said two weeks ago, “Don’t waste time on it. I don’t care how many people sign that f**king petition,” according to a recording obtained by Reuters. “Don’t give me the sh*t that ‘work from home Friday’ works.”

Dimon explained to CNBC Monday that he sometimes gets overly emotional at town halls, but acknowledged “I should never curse, ever. … And I shouldn’t get angry and stuff like that.”

Still, Dimon said he was committed to requiring most employees to work from the office full time. And if employees don’t like it, they can find a job that allows for hybrid work, he argued.

“They should respect that the company is going to decide what’s good for the clients, the company, etc., not an individual,” Dimon told CNBC. “And so they can get a job — and I’m not being mean — they can get a job elsewhere.”

Dimon said he doesn’t oppose work-from-home policies in general — but he dislikes them when they don’t work.

Return-to-office policies have angered many employees who moved far from their offices during the pandemic or achieve a better work-life balance from home. But a growing number of companies — Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, Disney and many others — are mandating that employees come back to the office full time, without many exceptions.

Dimon says he is sticking to his guns.

“There’s a petition,” Dimon told CNBC. “And they have the right to feel that way. But we’re not going to change. We’re going back to the office.”

The US government is going through the same return-to-office mandate, with Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency leading the Trump administration’s efforts to require federal workers to come back to work five days a week — or lose their jobs.

The often unspoken element of return-to-office mandates is that they can serve as a way to orchestrate a round of layoffs, leading many employees to leave of their own volition. That creates a path to reduce the size of their workforces without the expense of having to provide severance packages.

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