A JPMorgan Chase employee was fired—albeit briefly—after publicly questioning CEO Jamie Dimon about the bank’s return-to-office (RTO) policy during a town hall meeting on February 12. The employee, Nicolas Welch, later had his termination rescinded following intervention from higher management, according to a report by Fortune.
Welch, an analyst in tech operations who has worked for JPMorgan Chase since 2017, was among those affected by the bank’s new mandate requiring all 317,000 employees to return to the office five days a week starting next month. Until now, about 40% of the workforce had been allowed to work from home two days a week. Welch, who is going through a divorce and cited family and childcare responsibilities, questioned Dimon about whether managers should have discretion over in-office requirements for their teams.
At the town hall
During the town hall in Columbus, Ohio, Welch acknowledged Dimon’s leadership before making his case. He explained that his seven-member team operates across different countries and time zones, making physical office presence irrelevant to productivity. He then suggested that the decision on office attendance should be left to individual managers. His remarks were met with applause from coworkers, but Dimon dismissed the idea outright.
“There is no chance that I would leave that up to managers. Zero chance. The abuse that took place was extraordinary,” Dimon responded, referring to inefficiencies he attributed to remote work. He further criticized employees for wasting time on Zoom meetings and noted that the bank’s headcount had grown by 50,000 in the past few years. Dimon also dismissed a petition signed by employees urging the bank to reconsider the mandate, saying, “I don’t care how many people sign that f---ing petition.”
Fired for questioning - or not?
Shortly after the town hall, Welch received an urgent text from Garrett Monaghan, a Vice President in JPMorgan Chase’s Technology Employee Support Services (TESS) division, demanding he report to his desk immediately. When Welch arrived at the meeting, Monaghan and another executive, Jeffrey Todd Merrill, confronted him.
According to Welch, Monaghan told him he had “dragged our whole organization through the mud” and ordered him to clear his desk and leave. Welch complied, gathering his belongings and exiting the building.
For hours, Welch believed he had been fired. He reached out to his direct manager, Richard Cundiff, who provided no immediate clarification. It wasn’t until 4:30 p.m. that Megan Mead, JPMorgan Chase’s executive director of global IT support, contacted Welch to inform him that he still had his job. She assured him that she had “smoothed things over” with Monaghan. Later that evening, Monaghan sent Welch a text apologising for the incident and offering a beer and a handshake.
JPMorgan Chase later clarified that Welch was never formally dismissed. “He didn’t say anything wrong in the town hall,” a company spokesperson told Fortune. Welch’s boss, Cundiff, also denied that Welch had been fired but declined to comment further.
Despite retaining his job, Welch remains frustrated over the ordeal and the workplace climate under the RTO mandate. “I want to do the job that I love in the way that I want to do it. That’s what I hope to get out of all this,” he told Fortune.
The incident has sparked discussions among employees, with some praising Welch for speaking up. Some JPMorgan Chase workers have even dubbed him the “Voice of America.”
The controversy highlights growing tensions over return-to-office policies at major corporations, as employees push back against rigid mandates in favour of flexible work arrangements.