News

Amazon Back-to-Office Edict Flummoxes Recent Hire

• By David Ramel
• 09/18/2024

The recent Amazon back-to-office mandate made news waves because many IT workers such as those at Amazon Web Services (AWS) are enjoying the remote work lifestyle brought on by the Covid pandemic. Corporate strategies, worker productivity, the value of in-person collaborations, the value of happy employees and other factors were debated after the announcement, but one social media post brings home how such decisions can affect individual workers.

Published yesterday, the Reddit post says:

I accepted an offer at AWS last week, and Amazon's 3 day WFO week was a major factor while eliminating my other offers. I also decided to rent an apartment a bit farther from the office due to less travel days. Today, I read that Amazon employees will return to office 5 days a week starting January! Did I just get scammed for a short term?

Comments poured in and were still trickling as this article was being written. Most seem to commiserate with the new hire and blast the company.

One particularly biting comment read:

You're entering a company with a sad, broken culture. If you work your ass off to get ahead, your mind and body will suffer and you will get no reward.
Any reward you do get will be tacked onto the end of a carrot and stick, so that you have to keep performing this awful and soulless work for at least 2 more years before you will receive the reward for whatever things you did yesterday.
Amazon has shown that its workers are treated like livestock, ready to be slaughtered as soon as they'll get a stock bump or tax break out of it.
You should get back on the job market.
Amazon always takes far, far more than it gives.

Another said:

Seek clarification. You're in a better bargaining position than if you already started. And you can more easily walk away now of necessary. Those who have been given permission for remote work can continue. It's probably a tactic to reduce headcount really anyway.

The post and comments came in the wake of Monday's message from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy about "Strengthening our culture and teams."

Jassy said he and other execs have for the past several months been thinking about two areas:

• Do we have the right org structure to drive the level of ownership and speed we desire?
• Are we set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other (and our culture) to deliver the absolute best for customers and the business that we can?

Regarding the latter, he said: "To address the second issue of being better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other and our culture to deliver the absolute best for customers and the business, we've decided that we're going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID."

That means workers are expected to be in the office five days a week outside of extenuating circumstances or unless they have a Remote Work Exception approved through a supervisor.

"We understand that some of our teammates may have set up their personal lives in such a way that returning to the office consistently five days per week will require some adjustments," Jassy continued. "To help ensure a smooth transition, we're going to make this new expectation active on January 2, 2025."

And Reddit wasn't the only online source where the news was discussed, as Business Insider on Monday published an article titled, "Amazon employees blast new RTO policy in internal messages: 'Can I negotiate my manager to PIP me?'."

The Hacker News site was also on fire, with a post generating a whopping 1,879 comments at the time of this writing.

Topping that list was:

As a firmware engineer, my job demands more "in-office-y" stuff than most other engineers on HN. I have specialized equipment. Hardware. I need to interface with manufacturing. So on.
Guess what? I'm going on 1 year fully remote, and I'm doing great! Turns out, all that fancy equipment can be brought home with you. We deal with a contract manufacturer, and emailing them from home is no harder than emailing them from the office. Instead of being stuck in a concrete jungle, I can go test the product out in a more realistic environment in the park across from my home. It's made me happier, healthier AND more productive. Eliminating 2 hours a day of driving and train rides left me with more energy I can expend on my work! Who'da thunk it?

Another social media user posted a video to reflect the reaction of many workers:

A comment to a Reuters post about the move read:

Amazon is bucking the WFH trend, ordering employees back to the office 5 days a week. A risky move as other tech giants embrace remote work. Will it help or hurt the company in the long run? Bold strategy that will be interesting to watch play out.

Those are indeed interesting considerations, as looking at all the internet commentary reveals some common themes, including:

• Many users suspect this is a strategy for "hidden layoffs" or "layoffs without severance."
• Users theorize that Amazon hopes employees will quit voluntarily rather than return to the office, allowing the company to reduce headcount without formal layoffs.
• Concerns about long commutes and reduced work-life balance were common.
• Some employees mentioned they or their colleagues had moved away during remote work, making a return difficult.
• Many questioned the rationale that in-office work increases productivity, especially for roles like software development.
• Some pointed out the irony of commuting to an office only to attend virtual meetings.
• Some users advised caution about quitting immediately, citing the current challenging job market.
• Others suggested this might lead to a talent exodus from Amazon.

Stay tuned to see how Amazon's contrarian employee strategy plays out in the long run.

Amazon didn't disseminate the news on social media.