JPMorgan is circling the wagons, leaving employees feeling “disgusted” after the company’s employee monitoring program was leaked to the press.
Like many large companies, JPMorgan has a complicated relationship with hybrid and remote work. CEO Jamie Dimon is not a fan of remote work despite the company finally adopting a hybrid remote policy.
The company’s relationship with hybrid work, and its employees, became much more complicated after Business Insider reported on its employee monitoring system, called “Workplace Activity Data Utility,” or WADU for short. WADU is designed to track how employees spend their time, including their in-office time, Zoom usage, and much more.
In response to the report, Insider is reporting that JPMorgan called an emergency meeting to try to prevent further leaks, even telling managers to communicate policy updates verbally to make it harder to leak documents and communication to the press.
The company’s actions are not going over well with employees, many of whom are not happy about being monitored or JPMorgan’s opaque handling of the matter. According to one employee who was present at the meeting, “people felt disgusted. They just felt as if they were being betrayed, and that this was a way for the company to just instill fear into employees.”
A JPMorgan spokesperson refuted Insider’s report, telling the outlet he was “not aware of any direction or meeting with ‘mid-level or senior-level executives’ to restrict access or knowledge of WADU, nor have we made any access changes to the system, as your anonymous source suggests.”
If Insider’s reports are true, this certainly wouldn’t be the first time a major company has upset its employees with its handling of remote and hybrid work or by spying on employees.