Amazon Spheres, part of Amazon’s headquarters campus, right, in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Sunday, Oct. 24, 2021.
Chona Kasinger | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Group Amazon staff urged CEO Andy Jassy to reconsider the recent mandate to return to the role.
Last week, Jassy he announced Starting May 1, Amazon would require company employees to spend at least three days a week in the office. Amazon is returning its pandemic-era flexibility toward remote work after Jassy and Amazon’s leadership team, known as the S-team, decided it would make it easier for employees to collaborate and innovate in person while strengthening company culture.
The move marks a shift from Amazon’s earlier policy, which was last updated in October 2021, leaving it up to managers to decide how often their teams need to be in the office. Since then, there has been a mix of fully remote and hybrid work among Amazon’s white-collar workers.
Employees created a Slack channel Friday to advocate for telecommuting and share their concerns about the new return-to-work policy, according to screenshots seen by CNBC. As of Tuesday morning, nearly 14,000 employees had joined the Slack channel.
Employees have also created a petition addressed to Jassy and the S-team calling on management to drop the new policy, saying it is “contrary” to Amazon’s stances on diversity and inclusion, affordable housing, sustainability and a focus on being. and “Earth’s Best Employer.”
“We, the undersigned, call on Amazon to protect its role and status as a global retail and technology leader by immediately rescinding the RTO policy and issuing new policies that allow employees to work remotely or more flexibly if they choose. as their team and job roles allow,” reads the draft petition, which he previously reported on Business Insider.
An Amazon spokesperson pointed back at Jassy blog post for advice on returning to the office.
The staff also pointed to Jassa’s previous statements about plans to return to the office, in which he said there is no “one-size-fits-all approach for how every team works best” and touted the benefits remote work.
“Many employees trusted these statements and planned for a life where their employer would not force them to return to the office,” the draft petition states. “The RTO’s mandate has undermined their confidence in Amazon’s leadership.”
Employees who have relocated or been hired into a remote role during the pandemic are worried about how the new policy will affect them, according to one employee who asked to remain anonymous. Amazon’s workforce has grown over the past three years, hiring more outside of its key tech hubs such as Seattle, New York and Northern California as it embraces a more distributed workforce.
Amazon did not address whether remote workers would be asked to relocate, except that Jassy noted that there would be a “small minority” of exceptions to the new policy.
The petition cites internal data showing that a significant proportion of employees prefer to work fully remotely with the option of monthly office synchronization or prefer to work in the office no more than one to two days per week. He also points to research showing that remote work increases productivity and allows companies like Amazon to cut costs and attract and retain top talent.
It also notes that a return to predominantly face-to-face work could affect employees’ work-life balance and could particularly harm parents, minorities, caregivers and people with disabilities. Employees also questioned Amazon’s reasoning for forcing in-person work in all cases. For example, some employees who are part of global teams come into the office only to continue virtual meetings and may not even have a co-worker in their office, the petition states.
