JPMorgan Chase plans to make special payments to lower-paid employees and branch workers who don’t have the ability to do their jobs from home.
The biggest U.S. bank will make payments of $1,000 — $500 next month, and the rest in May — to branch employees as well as operations and call-center staff who make less than $60,000 in total annual cash compensation, according to an internal memo.
“Many of our front-line employees in our branches, operations and call centers, and other key sites who continue to go into their office or branch each day face particular challenges related to issues like childcare and transportation,” the bank’s operating committee said in the memo to staff Friday. The payments are a way to “help them meet these challenges and to recognize their ongoing commitment to our customers, clients and communities.”
JPMorgan’s bank tellers, call-center workers and support staff are part of the roughly 70% of American workers who don’t have the ability to work from home. They’re among the 100 million people likely to be the last ones at work even as colleagues set up shop in home offices or at kitchen tables.
JPMorgan has urged its worldwide employees who are based out of corporate offices to work remotely when they can as part of the global effort to combat the spread of Covid-19 through social distancing. The bank has also temporarily shut about 1,000 of its branches across the country — about 20% of them — and has shortened operating hours at those that remain open.
The company also is planning to give all its workers an extra five paid days off, according to the memo.
The bank has said it will also pay branch staff for their regularly scheduled shifts even if their hours are reduced or their branch is closed.