Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sent out a memo on Monday directing corporate employees to report to work five days a week.
TakeAway Points:
- Andy Jassy, the CEO of Amazon, has directed corporate employees to work five days a week from the office.
- Amazon used to mandate that workers report to work three days a week.
- By reducing the number of managers in each organisation, Amazon is also dismantling its corporate structure.
Amazon staff to spend five days in the office
Amazon is instructing corporate staffers to spend five days a week in the office, CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a memo on Monday.
The decision marks a significant shift from Amazon’s earlier return-to-work stance, which required corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week. Now, the company is giving employees until Jan. 2 to start adhering to the new policy.
Corporate employees will be expected to be in the office five days a week “outside of extenuating circumstances” or unless they have been granted an exception by their organization’s S-team leader, Jassy said, referring to the close-knit group of executives that report to Amazon’s CEO.
“Before the pandemic, it was not a given that folks could work remotely two days a week, and that will also be true moving forward — our expectation is that people will be in the office outside of extenuating circumstances,” Jassy said.
Amazon also plans to simplify its corporate structure by having fewer managers in order to “remove layers and flatten organizations,” Jassy said. Each S-team organization will be expected to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of the first quarter of 2025, he said. Individual contributors refer to employees who typically do not manage other staffers.
Amazon said each team will review their structure as part of the process and that it’s possible they’ll identify roles that are no longer required. Any changes or adjustments will be announced at the team level, the company added.
Amazon in-house second quarter activity
The company rapidly grew its headcount over the course of the pandemic before Jassy took the helm and instituted widespread cost cuts across Amazon, including the largest layoffs in its 27 years as a public company. Amazon’s headcount totalled 1.53 million employees in the second quarter, representing growth of just 5% from a year earlier. By comparison, Amazon’s workforce expanded 14% to 1.52 million employees in the second quarter of 2022.
Jassy wrote in a lengthy missive to staffers that Amazon is making the changes to strengthen its corporate culture and ensure that it remains nimble. He underscored the point by saying the company created a “bureaucracy mailbox,” or dedicated email alias, to root out any unnecessary processes or excessive rules within the company.
“We want to operate like the world’s largest startup,” Jassy wrote. “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.”
