Amazon to employees: If you don't want to go back to the office, you should quit
From January, employees will work in the office five days a week. Anyone who doesn't want to do this should look for another employer, says the CEO.
(Image: Black Salmon/Shutterstock.com)
One month after announcing that Amazon employees will soon have to return to the office five days a week, the company's CEO has suggested that critics should resign. "If there are people who can't and don't want to work well in such an environment, then that's fine, there are other companies," the news agency Reuters quoted Andy Jassy as saying. He added that he didn't mean that in a bad way. At Amazon, they want to offer an environment "in which we can work together". If you want to work "really, really innovatively" on interesting products, he sees no opportunity to do so if this is not done locally. According to the head of Amazon Web Services (AWS), nine out of ten employees – with whom he spoke – support a return to the office.
More office, less manager
Amazon is one of the most resolute US companies in its attempt to bring employees back to the office after the switch to working from home during the coronavirus pandemic. Since 2023, employees have had to go into the office three days a week and Jassy warned back then that it "probably won't end well" for employees who don't comply. The obligation to be in the office five days a week will apply from January 2025, with exceptions in cases such as when a child is ill or there is an emergency at home. It should also remain possible to work from home if this requires more isolated, concentrated work. This was already the case before coronavirus. Other exceptions can be agreed with the respective managers.
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Jassy announced the change a month ago. The CEO also decreed that there would be fewer managers in future. A balanced relationship between employees and managers must be established in each team. Jassy had asked employees to inform him of examples of unnecessary bureaucracy and lengthy processes within the Group. The US online retailer had also started to monitor employee attendance. This is intended to prevent employees from only being in the office for a short time and then disappearing straight back to their home office. In order to meet the attendance requirement, employees must be present in the office for at least two hours a day. In some departments, it is even six hours. According to Reuters, some employees who did not meet the requirements were also listed as "voluntarily terminated" and logged out of the systems.
(mho)
