NEW YORK — Amazon employees are expressing their concerns about the company’s return-to-office policy, and CEO Andy Jassy has responded.
During a recent internal Q&A session, Jassy urged employees to “disagree and commit” with the policy, which requires corporate employees to be in the office three days a week. This phrase is one of Amazon’s leadership principles, frequently used by founder and executive chairman, Jeff Bezos.
Jassy emphasized that it is unfair for some employees to be in the office while others refuse to do so. His comments were initially reported by Business Insider and later shared by Amazon.
The current office attendance mandate, implemented in May, marks a shift from Amazon’s previous policy that allowed leaders to determine their teams’ work arrangements. However, the company rejects the notion that the prior policy was intended to be the norm and highlights Jassy’s 2021 blog post where he mentioned that adjustments would continue to be made based on evolving information.
Jassy explained that the decision to update the policy was influenced by observing successful practices during the pandemic and consulting with leaders from other companies. He stated that in-person engagement and collaboration were found to be more effective.
However, many employees remain unconvinced. In May, hundreds of Amazon employees protested the new policy at the company’s Seattle headquarters, and an internal Slack channel advocating for remote work gained 33,000 members. Some employees have also requested data to support Jassy’s claims.
During the session, Jassy acknowledged that perfect data is not always available for decision-making, citing examples such as Amazon’s pursuit of an online marketplace for sellers and its cloud computing unit, AWS.
In addition to the return-to-office policy, Amazon has also implemented a requirement for some workers in smaller offices to relocate to larger cities where main offices are located, according to multiple media reports.
Amazon employs 1.4 million people worldwide, but the exact number of office-based employees is undisclosed.