Amazon Spheres, part of the Amazon headquarters campus in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, USA, on Sunday, October 24, 2021.
Chonna Kasinger | Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images
group of Amazon Employees are asking CEO Andy Jassy to reconsider the order to return to the new office.
On Friday, Jassy announced that Amazon will require company staff to spend at least three days a week in the office starting May 1. Jassy said that he and his leadership team at Amazon, known as his team, make it easier for employees to collaborate and invent together, and face-to-face work strengthens the company’s culture.
The move marks a shift from Amazon’s pandemic-era policy, last updated in October 2021, which left it up to managers to decide how often teams needed to be in the office. Since then, there has been a mix of fully remote and hybrid work among Amazon’s white-collar workforce.
Staff created a Slack channel on Friday to support remote work and share concerns about the new return-to-work policy, according to screenshots seen by CNBC. members have joined the Slack channel.
Employees also drafted a petition addressed to Jassy and the S team, urging leadership to drop the new policy, urging diversity and inclusion, affordable housing, sustainability, and “planet’s best jobs.” main”.
“We, the signatories, will immediately revoke the RTO policy and issue a new policy that allows our employees to work more flexibly if they choose to work remotely or more flexibly, so that Amazon can We call on them to defend their roles and positions as global retail and technology leaders as their teams and job roles allow,” according to a draft petition previously reported. business insider.
An Amazon spokesperson mentioned Jassy’s. blog post About reinstatement guidance.
The employee also pointed to Jussie’s previous statements regarding her return-to-work plan. He said There is no one-size-fits-all approach to making all teams work best, and they celebrate the benefits of remote work.
“Many employees trusted these statements and planned their lives in such a way that their employers would not force them to return to the office,” the draft petition says. “RTO’s order has shattered their confidence in Amazon’s leadership.”
Employees who moved during the pandemic or who were hired in remote roles are worried about how the new policy will affect them, according to one employee who requested anonymity. Headcount has skyrocketed over the last three years, and as we hired a more distributed workforce, we hired more employees outside of our core technology hubs such as Seattle, New York, and Northern California.
Amazon has not said whether remote employees will be asked to relocate, and Jassy said there are “very few” exceptions to the new policy.
The petition states that a significant percentage of employees prefer working fully remotely with the option of monthly synchronization in the office, or prefer working in the office at most one to two days a week. It also cites research showing that remote work boosts productivity and helps companies like Amazon save money and attract and retain top talent.
It also noted that a return to primarily in-person work could impact the work-life balance of employees, particularly hurting parents, minorities, caregivers and people with disabilities. Employees also questioned Amazon’s rationale behind mandating in-person work in all cases. For example, some employees who are part of a global team only come to the office to continue their virtual girlfriend meetings and may even not have colleagues in the office, the petition says.
clock: Andy Jassy discusses the benefits of working remotely
