JPMorgan Chase staffers complain of being 'watched' all the time as the bank seems to be growing more secretive with its employee-tracking systems
- JPMorgan Chase appears to be growing more secretive about an internal system that tracks its employees, Insider reports.
- Executives held an emergency meeting after Insider revealed details about the company's practice of tracking workers.
JPMorgan Chase appears to be growing more secretive about an internal system that tracks its employees, according to a new report from Insider.
The system, called "Workplace Activity Data Utility," or WADU, was first revealed by Insider in May. The program tracks how JPMorgan's hundreds of thousands of employees spend their time - from office attendance, to how long they are on Zoom calls or spend using Microsoft Office applications like Excel.
JPMorgan executives held an emergency meeting after Insider's initial report about WADU, and have attempted to crack down on access to the system. Some managers have been instructed to communicate updated company policies verbally, instead of in writing, to limit leaks to the press, according to Insider.
Insider reports that some workers are perturbed by JPMorgan's efforts to track their every activity, and the company's subsequent efforts to shroud those programs in secrecy.
An employee who attended the emergency meeting told Insider that "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."
In a statement to Insider, a spokesperson for JPMorgan said 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."
JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has shared his distaste for remote work in the past, saying it can undermine the "character" of a company. JPMorgan now has a hybrid work policy, and Insider first reported in April that the bank is tracking workers' ID swipes to enforce that policy, causing some employees to look for jobs elsewhere.