Amazon Shelves Fully Remote Work, Requests Staff Return to Office
Amazon has called on thousands of its employees to return to the office for at least three days a week, starting May 1.
In a memo posted(Opens in a new window) on Amazon’s company news site, and shared with employees, Andy Jassy, Amazon’s CEO, said “it’s easier to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture when we’re in the office together most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues.”
The return-to-office plans come after Amazon updated its guidance back in the second half of 2021 to allow Director-level leaders to decide where their teams would work.
Highlighting the differences between remote work culture and in-person work, Jassy added that the latter made “collaborating and inventing … and learning from one another easier.”
Jassy continued: “Teams tend to be better connected to one another when they see each other in person more frequently. There is something about being face-to-face with somebody, looking them in the eye, and seeing they’re fully immersed in whatever you’re discussing that bonds people together.
Teams tend to find ways to work through hard and complex trade-offs faster when they get together and map it out in a room."
In the message, Jassy also said he was “optimistic” that the shift to in-person work would “provide a boost for the thousands of businesses located around our urban headquarter locations in the Puget Sound, Virginia, Nashville, and the dozens of cities around the world” where Amazon employees go to the office.
The move comes after Jassy announced in January that 18,000 Amazon jobs would be cut, with a majority of roles being chopped from the Amazon Stores (Go, Fresh, Style) and PXT (People, Experience, and Technology) organizations.
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