Amazon CEO Andy Jassy dismissed allegations that the company’s five-day in-office obligation was meant to further reduce head count or placate city officials.
TakeAway Points:
- At an all-hands meeting, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy assured staff that the recent 5-day in-office requirement is not intended to be “a backdoor layoff,”.
- In September, the business declared that starting in January, all staff would have to work in the office full-time.
- The requirement has drawn criticism from workers, who have urged Amazon executives to reevaluate their remote work guidelines.
Layoff strategy
“A number of people I’ve seen theorise that the reason we were doing this is a backdoor layoff or we made some sort of deal with the city, or cities, and that’s why we were having people come back and be together more often,” Jassy said at an all-hands meeting Tuesday, according to remarks obtained by CNBC. “I can tell you both of those are not true.”
Amazon announced the new mandate in September. The company’s previous return-to-work stance required corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week. Employees have until Jan. 2 to adhere to the new policy.
The mandate has spurred backlash from some Amazon employees who say they’re just as productive working from home or in a hybrid work environment as they are in the office. Others have said the mandate is in line with Jassy’s continued cost-cutting efforts, suggesting that it’s a means of forced attrition. Amazon has laid off more than 27,000 employees since the beginning of 2022.
Amazon’s 5-day in-office mandate
An Amazon spokesperson pointed to Jassy’s memo announcing the 5-day in-office mandate.
The company provides a variety of benefits and services for employees’ commutes that vary by location but include free shuttles, subsidized parking, reimbursable public transit, subsidized ridesharing and bike-related costs, an Amazon spokesperson said.
“This was not a cost play for us,” Jassy said at the meeting, which coincided with Election Day. “This is very much about our culture and strengthening our culture.”
At the time he announced the mandate, Jassy said that a return to the office full time would allow Amazon to be “better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other and our culture to deliver the absolute best for customers and the business.”
Amazon’s cloud boss Matt Garman also defended the decision last month, saying staffers who don’t agree with the company’s new policy can leave. Garman also said he’s been speaking with staffers about the mandate and “nine out of 10 people are actually quite excited by this change.”
Garman’s comments further rankled Amazon employees.
Critics on Garman’s comments
Roughly 500 staffers who work for Amazon’s cloud computing business, Amazon Web Services, penned a letter to Garman last week criticizing his remarks and questioning the merits of a five-day in-office mandate, according to a copy of the letter.
“We urge you to reconsider your comments and position on the proposed 5-day in-office mandate,” the letter said. “Remote and flexible work is an opportunity for Amazon to take the lead, not a threat. We want to work for company and for leaders that recognize and seize this moment to challenge us to reinvent how we work.”
The letter included anecdotes from AWS staffers who detailed how the five-day in-office mandate will impact their “life and work.” One staffer said they were denied disability accommodation and were being told to return to the office, and another employee said they were recently told to use paid time off to take care of a sick family member instead of being allowed to work from home. Another employee said the RTO mandate would require them to be in an office “over 200 miles from my home.”
At least 37,000 employees have joined an internal Slack channel created last year to advocate for remote work and share grievances about the return-to-work mandate, according to a previous report. Staffers previously pushed back on the 3-day in-office mandate, with some staging a walkout at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters to express their dissatisfaction.
Jassy acknowledged Tuesday that the five-day in-office mandate will be an adjustment for employees.
“I understand that for a lot of people and we’re going to be working through that adjustment together,” he said.
