JPMorgan Chase Leads in Investment In Workers, Demonstrating The Value of Prioritizing Key Stakeholders
By Daniel Krasner and Aleksandra Radeva
Providing good jobs means paying workers well, supporting their well-being, offering career advancement opportunities, and building inclusive work environments. Failure in these areas can come at a high cost for businesses by creating a vicious cycle of attrition, negatively impacting productivity and undermining overall profitability. But investments in job quality foster loyalty and satisfaction among employees and are linked to better performance and lower turnover, benefitting a company’s bottom line. Prioritizing such investments is also a way to align corporate strategy with the American public’s business priorities, as our seven years of polling data show worker issues consistently rank the highest.
As business leaders continue to navigate the challenges of attracting and retaining top talent, offering quality jobs is one way for companies to maintain a competitive edge in the labor market.
But which companies stand out for their workforce investments? JUST Capital’s JUST Jobs Scorecard and The Schultz Family Foundation’s American Opportunity Index (AOI) assess company performance on job quality by tracking the policy investments that companies make and the outcomes of these investments for their employees. Among the hundreds of companies analyzed in both tools, JPMorgan Chase (JPMC) emerged as a leader with programs focused on fair and equitable compensation, employee career development, and inclusive hiring practices across their workforce.
For JPMC, aligning workforce investments with strategic goals is critical:
“Our employees are key to our success in serving customers, clients and communities. We aspire to have the best talent in the marketplace and to foster a work environment in which all of our people are supported, feel like they belong, and are able to make an impact through their work. In addition to providing a positive and inclusive work environment and offering a competitive pay and benefits package, we invest in our employees with training and upskilling opportunities and support along the way so they never stop learning.” – Trish Dever, Head of Total Rewards at JPMorgan Chase
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Wages & Compensation
For more than five years, JUST Capital’s survey research shows that ‘Paying a fair, living wage’ continues to be the top business issue for the American public. Unsurprisingly, pay is also the primary reason for quitting a job cited by workers. Recognizing the critical role of pay in job quality, JPMC ensures a minimum hourly wage of at least $20 – one of only 2% of companies featured in the JUST Jobs Scorecard to disclose doing so. Importantly, JPMC’s minimum wage meets the national living wage estimate for a single working adult of $17.46/hour in 2023 – or the minimum amount that a full-time worker with no dependents requires to cover basic budgetary needs, as estimated by the MIT Living Wage Calculator. Only 4% of the Russell 1000 companies we assessed in the JUST Jobs Scorecard disclose paying a wage that meets the single adult living wage estimate, and even fewer – just 2% – disclose paying at least $20/h, placing JPMC among a small minority of companies that prioritize this level of wage-based investment in their entry-level workers.
A commitment to fairness is another element of JPMC’s compensation strategy. The company conducts periodic pay equity analyses and is among just 12% of Russell 1000 companies overall and 31% of banks that disclose both their gender and race/ethnicity adjusted pay ratios.
Training & Development and Hiring
Beyond competitive and fair compensation, JPMC prioritizes employee development and training – another key consideration for workers in choosing to remain at a company. JPMC offers tuition reimbursement, apprenticeship programs through their Analyst and Associate hiring, and Emerging Talent Programs, which aims to build more inclusive pathways into the financial sector for untapped talent, such as individuals who are either pre-college or lack a conventional university degree. Just 17% of banks and 26% of the Russell 1000 overall disclose offering apprenticeship programs and the career pathways they make possible. JPMC’s focus on professional development and upskilling opportunities underlies the company’s strong performance on the promotion dimension in the AOI, which assesses JPMC employees’ promotion prospects and their ability to advance their career beyond the organization.
Building on its commitment to employee training and advancement, JPMC also emphasizes inclusive hiring practices, including a dedicated veteran recruitment policy and efforts to support justice-impacted individuals. With over 18,000 veterans and 3,100 military spouses currently employed, their Military Pathways Rotational Programs offers extensive support, including training, mentorship, and networking, aiding service members’ transition to civilian roles.
Another way JPMC supports inclusive hiring is through expanding its second chance hiring models to better reach qualified candidates and collaborating with the Second Chance Business Coalition to develop best practices for hiring individuals with criminal backgrounds. As a result of these efforts, in 2022, second chance hires comprised 10% of all of the company’s new U.S. hires that year. JPMC is one of 11% of banks and 6% of Russell 1000 companies to give justice-impacted individuals a second chance.
Increasingly, companies are prioritizing job quality and targeted workforce investments. The business case for these investments is clear, as they contribute to long-term organizational success and profitability.
The policies that emerge from JPMC’s workforce investment priorities can be tracked through our JUST Jobs Scorecard, and the policies’ positive impact on JPMC employees can be explored through JPMC’s performance on the American Opportunity Index.
To learn how we’re engaging on job quality issues, unpack your company’s performance on the JUST Jobs Scorecard, or join a corporate community of practice focused on peer learning and expert feedback on workforce well-being, please reach out to corpengage@justcapital.com
