Hey All,
I’ve been writing lately about remote work and today is no exception. This week I’ll look at why negative views of remote work hinder efforts to build inclusive and diverse teams.
Hope all the US folks enjoyed the long weekend! 🎆
-Ben
🔦The Signals We Send🔦
Saying things
Jaime Dimon, CEO of JP Morgan Chase, said some things.1
Regarding diversity and equity, he had this to say in October 2021 :
After COVID and George Floyd, we [Chase] double downed advancing Black leadership through Advance Black Pathways, which is an initiative that builds on Chase’s existing effort to help the Black communities chart stronger paths towards economic success and empowerment.
And then this about gender equality back in 2017:
What I’m pretty proud to say is 30 percent of my direct reports are women. I’ve been trying to get the press to write a story about this for years.
He had this to say in May about working from home:
So Jamie Dimon, leader of the largest bank in the US, believes in racial and gender equity but doesn’t love remote work. He’s certainly entitled to his opinions. But the purpose of this post is to show that two seemingly unrelated beliefs can impact one another. Specifically, publicly criticizing remote work can undermine efforts to build a more equitable workplace.
Who wants remote work?
Let’s start with who wants remote work. According to Slack’s Future Forum people of color like remote work, more so than their white counterparts. From the New York Times:
a whopping 97 percent of Black respondents in the U.S. said they preferred a fully remote or hybrid workplace. Only 3 percent of Black workers surveyed said they wanted to return fully in person, compared with 21 percent of white workers. In another study from the same group, Black workers reported a 50 percent increase in their sense of workplace belonging and a 64 percent increase in their ability to manage stress once they began working from home. The study concluded that flexible work was critical to a feeling of greater inclusion for Black workers.
Additionally, women tend to see themselves as more productive when working remotely and are more likely than men to view remote work as a way to stay in the workforce.
In other words, the two groups that Jaime Dimon wants to build up also, in his view anyway, desire a work structure that indicates a lack of hustle.
Jaime’s Contradiction
Would you want to work for a company where leaders thought you lacked hustle because you didn’t want to commute? Or maybe you like remote work because you can avoid bias? Or perhaps you made the controversial decision to have a family or care for a sick relative and need more flexibility? Or maybe you live in a rural area and have household responsibilities but still want to work to build you and your family’s economic security? Maybe you hustle harder than any JP Morgan banker, but just in a different context.
My issue with Jamie Dimon’s comments about remote work is the signal they send. If Mr. Dimon (and Chase more broadly) are serious about helping “Black communities chart stronger paths towards economic success and empowerment,” or if he’d like more recognition of his efforts to promote gender equity, then wouldn’t it make sense for him to support work structures that empower those groups rather than publicly denigrating them for (his perceived) lack of hustle? Wouldn’t acknowledging the needs of those groups signal inclusion rather than suspicion?
By making the statements he has regarding remote work Jaime Dimon has placed a ceiling on his efforts to build a more equitable workplace.
What if Jaime Dimon said something like instead:
We know that remote work environments are preferred by groups who have been traditionally underrepresented in the workforce and specifically at JP Morgan Chase. We also know that people can be just as productive working from home. So we’re investing in programs, trainings, and support structures to be a remote-first company. We know that talent is everywhere, but opportunity is not - so our goal is to expand opportunity wherever we can by changing arbitrary and self-defeating beliefs regarding remote work.
I don’t mean to pick on Jaime Dimon here. Lots of leaders say they want an inclusive workplace while criticizing remote work.
🔦The Signals We Send 🔦
Jaime is missing the point, as you very appropriately wrote, in trying to uplift the very groups that are feeling downtrodden. It was interesting, however, that 50% felt that this helped the culture, despite not being in physical proximity with their co-workers.
He can put out all the mandates he likes but the world's changed. The workforce is already ignoring the office requirements en masse.