Amazon issues back to office mandate

[Josquius]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czj99ln72k9o

Amazon tells staff to get back to office five days a week

Amazon is ordering staff back to the office five days a week as it ends its hybrid work policy.

The change will come into force from January, Amazon's chief executive Andy Jassy said in a memo to staff, external.

"We've decided that we're going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of Covid," he said, adding that it would help staff be "better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other".

Mr Jassy has long been known as a sceptic of remote work, but Amazon staff were previously allowed to work from home two days a week.

Amazon's push to get corporate staff back into the office has been a source of tension within the firm which employs more than 1.5 million people globally in full-time and part-time roles.

Staff at its Seattle headquarters staged a protest last year as the company tightened the full remote work allowance that was put in place during the pandemic.

Amazon subsequently fired the organiser of the protest, prompting claims of unfair retaliation, a dispute that has been taken up with labour officials.

In his message on Monday, Mr Jassy said he was worried that Amazon - which has long prided itself on preserving the intensity of a start-up while growing to become a tech giant - was seeing its corporate culture diluted by flexible work and too many bureaucratic layers.

Mr Jassy, who replaced founder Jeff Bezos as chief executive in 2021, said he had created a "bureaucracy mailbox" for staff to make complaints about unnecessary rules and the company was asking managers to reorganise so that managers are overseeing more people.

Amazon said those changes could lead to job cuts.

In addition to returning to the office five days a week, Amazon said it would end hot-desking in the US, although it will continue in most of Europe.

The company said staff could still work from home in unusual circumstances, such as a sick child or house emergency, as was the case before the pandemic.

But unless they have been granted an exemption, Mr Jassy said: "Our expectation is that people will be in the office outside of extenuating circumstances."

UK approach
Amazon's stance contrasts with the UK government's approach, which has promised to make flexible working a default right from day one as part of a new employment rights bill due to be published next month.

Business Secretary Jonathan Reynolds told the Times newspaper, external that the government wants to end the "culture of presenteeism", and said there were "real economic benefits" to people working from home.

He said there was a balance to be struck, but flexible working arrangements could help businesses recruit from a wider pool of people.

Graeme from Northumberland, who didn't want us to use his surname, mainly works from home and believes "you just get so much more done".

The difference between that and office work was "night and day" in terms of productivity, he said.

In the office people can come over for a chat, or to make requests, and then it can be more difficult to get back into a work flow, he said.

However, he added that the socialising aspect of working in an office was also important.

Wider shift?
Remote work peaked during the pandemic. Many companies started recalling staff in 2022, but the return has been incomplete.

As of this summer, about 12% of full-time employees in the US were fully remote and another 27% reported having hybrid work policies in place, according to a monthly survey by economists Jose Maria Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, and Steven J Davis.

Bank bosses such as JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon have been among the most high-profile figures critical of remote work and likely to demand full-time office attendance.

But the attitude has also spread to other industries, with UPS and Dell recalling staff to the office full-time this year.

In his memo, Mr Jassy said that Amazon's experience with its move to a hybrid policy had "strengthened our conviction about the benefits" of working in person.

But Prof Bloom, from Stanford University, said he did not think the announcements were a sign of a wider shift in work policies, noting that his data has found time spent at the office has been fairly stable for more than a year.

"For every high-profile company cancelling work-from-home, there's others that seem to be expanding it - they just don't get picked up in the media," he said.

A few thoughts here.

1: Can't help but find a bit of irony in Amazon saying this. OK Amazon. Sure. Lets go back to the office- whilst we're at it shouldn't we be getting back to the high street as well?

2: Amazon is one of the FAANG companies. It has no shortage of people keen to work there. It probably can get away with this where others can't.
Much like how the gaming or animation industries can get away with paying peanuts the top tech companies have big value to a lot of potential employees beyond salary.

3: Anyone spotted any patterns with this? I wonder what is the main factor that makes different companies come to totally opposite conclusions on the issue.

[Tamas]

I imagine that various levels of management use WFH as an excuse for their teams not delivering. Give it a few years they'll reverse course when they remember you can give fuckall about your job or be incompetent in the office as well.

I think companies enforcing office-work will struggle to get the best, or even good, tech talent.

BTW the one possibly worse setup is 4 days in office then Friday home. That WILL make people slack off on the Fridays.

[celedhring]

I'm surprised about hot-desking too. Every single tech company I've been to uses it, and swears by it.

[DGuller]

Say what you will about Amazon, and I definitely wouldn't want to work there, but they know how to extract productivity and efficiency.  As far as I'm aware, they haven't started decomposing yet like Google.  If they want to take this step, it's probably because they think it's to their benefit.

[garbon]

Say what you will about Amazon, and I definitely wouldn't want to work there, but they know how to extract productivity and efficiency.  As far as I'm aware, they haven't started decomposing yet like Google.  If they want to take this step, it's probably because they think it's to their benefit.

Higher ups always think their policy choices are beneficial.

[Grey Fox]

Disguised layoff & many exceptions will knee cap the mandate like it does everywhere else.

[Syt]

Can't the employees just fly in daily? Like the CEO of Starbucks?

[DGuller]

Say what you will about Amazon, and I definitely wouldn't want to work there, but they know how to extract productivity and efficiency.  As far as I'm aware, they haven't started decomposing yet like Google.  If they want to take this step, it's probably because they think it's to their benefit.

Higher ups always think their policy choices are beneficial.

Yes, but where I was going was that a company like Amazon has a track record of showing that their management decisions tend to be more correlated with efficiency than other companies' decisions.  If your management decisions are permeated with politics and ulterior motives, they tend to not lead to greater productivity and efficiency.  If they made that decision, it was less likely to be some cynical play that WFH fanatics see behind every RTO decision.

[garbon]

Say what you will about Amazon, and I definitely wouldn't want to work there, but they know how to extract productivity and efficiency.  As far as I'm aware, they haven't started decomposing yet like Google.  If they want to take this step, it's probably because they think it's to their benefit.

Higher ups always think their policy choices are beneficial.

Yes, but where I was going was that a company like Amazon has a track record of showing that their management decisions tend to be more correlated with efficiency than other companies' decisions.  If your management decisions are permeated with politics and ulterior motives, they tend to not lead to greater productivity and efficiency.  If they made that decision, it was less likely to be some cynical play that WFH fanatics see behind every RTO decision.

Sure but they are also the company known for being slave drivers in the name of that efficiency. Part of the WFH/hybrid work brigade's stance (or at least my personal one) is that it is about treating employees like humans. This move from Amazon is directly in line with what one would expect about their stance towards employees.

[garbon]

Oh I see they are also going to restructure.

https://www.techradar.com/pro/amazon-employees-to-return-to-office-full-time

The company has also revealed plans to restructure, aiming for fewer managers in order to 'remove layers and flatten organizations', Jassy confirmed. The company's senior teams will be asked to increase its ratio of contributors to managers by at least 15% by Q1 of 2025.

"We want to operate like the world's largest startup." Jassy explains. "That means having a passion for constantly inventing for customers, strong urgency (for most big opportunities, it's a race!), high ownership, fast decision-making, scrappiness and frugality, deeply-connected collaboration (you need to be joined at the hip with your teammates when inventing and solving hard problems), and a shared commitment to each other."

And combined with this statement - definitely time for some people to be polishing their resumes.

[Tamas]

Yeah they are clearly downsizing based on that.

[Valmy]

Yeah I don't think it makes sense to operate one of the largest companies in the world like a start up. But what do I know?

it was less likely to be some cynical play that WFH fanatics see behind every RTO decision

Well they would rather not waste lots of money and time. I don't think you need to be some kind of insane fanatic to not want to do that.

[Josquius]

Are Amazon really known for efficiency?
Its known the office worker experience there is quite different to the underhive experience.
And given the quality of amazon prime video....

But as I mention its worth considering amazon operate on different rules to most companies. They're considered a top company and have people queing up round the block to work there.

[Grey Fox]

My local office is looking for a Program Manager & have asked us to help in the recruitment efforts.

Our Home & Office Policy is dumb as fuck, it's not going to get any interested in the position.

[viper37]

3: Anyone spotted any patterns with this? I wonder what is the main factor that makes different companies come to totally opposite conclusions on the issue.

Disguised layoff.