When Nicolas Welch, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase’s Columbus office, attended a town hall meeting on February 12, he was just trying to do his job. However, his comments about the bank’s recent directive requiring employees to work in the office five days a week backfired when his supervisor, Garrett Monaghan, threatened to fire him.
Welch had spent weeks preparing his remarks for the Q&A session and argued that being in an office doesn’t make any difference for remote teams like his. However, Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan Chase’s CEO, was not moved by Welch’s comments and instead blamed employees for wasting time during Zoom meetings and criticized those who signed a petition to rescind the RTO mandate.
After the meeting, Welch received a text from Monaghan ordering him to clean off his desk and report to an executive office. Welch felt intimidated and convinced he had been fired. However, after speaking with his boss, Richard Cundiff’s replacement, Megan Mead, he was told that nothing out of the ordinary occurred.
It wasn’t until later that day when Monaghan apologized and offered to buy Welch a beer, saying he owed him an apology for his behavior. Despite being threatened with termination, Welch still has his job and has been praised by some colleagues for speaking out against office policy.
Source: https://fortune.com/2025/02/15/jpmorgan-chase-firing-rto-work-from-home-technology-zoom-welch