Jamie Dimon: mine’s bigger than yours

I always remember walking into Barclays in Canary Wharf and having a Boardroom meeting. We looked over to HSBC and realised that they were bigger (200 metres versus 156). Then there was Citibank, also 200 metres. Bar stewards.

But now there’s JPMorgan. The American bank is building a new tower that will be bigger than all of them. In fact, it will be taller than the original Canary Wharf itself at 260 metres high.

This involved serious discussions between JPM and Citi Airport, which flies over the East End city space and, oh, it’s going to cost more than £3 billion. That’s chump change for a company that spends five times more than that on tech, but it is still significant.

Then you ask yourself: why do you need a new £3 billion tower?

One answer is that we got Brexit wrong. JP Morgan is relocating workers from its Paris office after overestimating the number of staff needed on the Continent, six years after shifting services to the French capital following the UK’s exit from the European Union.

The other answer is surely: who’s the daddy?

For many years, cities have had this policy of trying to build the tallest towers to show who is the greatest of them all. I always remember Dubai developing the Burj Khalifa when, in 2008, it all went Pete Tong. In fact, it is emblazoned on many cities that, when developing the tallest buildings, it’s a sign of impending financial collapse ... or is it?

The thing that’s in play here is commitment, however. JPMorgan is committed to grow its’ international footprint. It’s expanded into UK retail banking, and is growing in Europe. The new office aims to consolidate its UK operations, accommodate up to 12,000 employees, and strengthen its European presence. The £3 billion project is viewed as a major vote of confidence in the UK economy and the City's status as a top financial hub. In fact, if you look under the hood, it’s more than a vote of confidence. It’s a UK booster.

The project is estimated to add almost £10 billion to the UK economy over the next six years, and create roughly 7,800 construction jobs. The investment, discussed in detail by BBC News and The Guardian, marks a significant, long-term commitment to London by JPMorgan's CEO Jamie Dimon. Woohoo!

What intrigues me however is: why open a new headquarters in the digital age? WFH – work from home – is the modern age. Obviously not.

For example, research by Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington, two doctoral students in economics at Harvard, analysed the performance of call-centre workers employed by a big online retailer between January 2018 and August 2020.

The conclusion was that there was an 8% increase in the number of calls handled per hour by remote employees working from home when, in a revised version of their paper, the boost to efficiency was actually a 4% decline.

The revision comes hot on the tails of other studies that have reached similar conclusions.

An MIT study randomly assigned data-entry workers in India to either work from home or the office. Those working at home were 18% less productive than their colleagues in the office.

The University of Essex found a productivity shortfall of as much as 19% for the remote employees of a large Asian it firm.

Another study determined that even chess professionals play less well in online matches than face-to-face tilts.

Yet another used a laboratory experiment to show that video conferences inhibit creative thinking.

So, the real message is that we need an office. We need face-to-face. We need interaction. We cannot just sit at home with a screen to be effective. We need humans around us.

That’s why JPM is investing £3 billion in a new office and, oh yes, don’t forget: mine’s bigger than yours.