Amazon orders employees back to the office 5 days a week, out-RTO’ing peers

Sad desk salads… are back at Amazon, which told its 350K+ corporate workers they’ll need to return to the office five days a week starting in January. Last May it started requiring three days in the office a week, which led to protests. Back then, CEO Andy Jassy said disgruntled staffers should “disagree and commit,” suggesting they should quit. Amazon’s five-day policy sets it apart from its more flexible peers, and employees are said to be venting in internal chats.

• No mute button: Jassy said that WFH days weren’t “a given” prepandemic and that working in person strengthens Amazon’s culture and collaboration.

• Blurry picture: Studies on whether employees are more productive remotely versus in the office are complicated. While some remote workers grind out more deliverables in the short term, their future output could be negatively affected by a lack of desk-buddy mentorship.

Going against the flow… Once the pandemic subsided enough for people to come within six feet of one another, the likes of Microsoft, Google, Meta, and Apple brought employees back into offices two to three days a week. Some (including Amazon) have ramped up enforcement of that minimum by tracking badge swipes. While hybrid work has become Big Tech’s norm, more than a third of workers who could work from home were fully remote last year. That’s down from 55% in October 2020, but up from just 7% before the pandemic.