For a couple of months now, Amazon has been urging its employees to return to the office and has been facing resistance on that front. Now, the e-commerce giant has strictly asked its employees to return to the office full-time. The company has released a new strict policy that requires Amazon employees to return to the office five days a week starting from January 2025. This was announced by Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Matt Garman. He said that in-person collaborations are vital to Amazon’s culture and innovation and those who don’t agree with this can find other jobs that offer better working environments for their needs.
Previously, Amazon asked its employees to work from the office three days a week, but this was met with resistance from some. The announcement was made during a company-wide meeting. Speaking to Reuters, Garman said, “If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s okay—there are other companies around.” He further added, “When we want to really innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we’re not in person.”
He also shared that even though some employees are not really supportive of the move, nine out of ten employees were in favour of the change. The employees have voiced concerns over the shift, citing the added stress and lengthy commutes associated with a full-time office schedule. To back their concerns, employees also showed studies that show remote work can be just as effective, if not more so, in boosting productivity.
Even though fellow tech giants like Meta, Google, and Microsoft allow flexibility to their employees and offer hybrid options, Amazon seems to apply the work-from-office rule pretty strictly now.