The era of widespread remote work is coming to an end at Amazon. The e-commerce and cloud computing giant will require its employees to come to work in person every day, CEO Andy Jassy said in a statement. message aimed at all employees. Amazon adopted almost total teleworking during the lockdown due to the pandemic. Then it adopted a hybrid model of three days a week in the office and two days a week of remote work. Now, with justified exceptions, that era is coming to an end.
Jassy justifies his decision on the need to preserve and transmit Amazon’s culture. “We have decided that we are going to return to being in the office as we were before the start of Covid. When we look back at the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant. I have previously explained these advantages, But in summary, we have observed that it is easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming and inventing is simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from each other is more fluid; and, teams tend to be better connected to each other. If anything, the last 15 months of returning to the office at least three days a week have reinforced our conviction about the benefits,” he writes in his message.
The Amazon executive acknowledges that before the pandemic, not everyone was in the office five days a week, every week, and he is committed to continuing to make exceptions, such as allowing employees who are sick to work remotely. “If you or your child was sick, if you had some kind of home emergency, if you were traveling to see clients or partners, if you needed a day or two to finish coding in a more isolated environment, people worked remotely. That was understood, and will continue to be understood. But, pre-pandemic, it was not a given that people could work remotely two days a week, and that will be the case going forward as well — our expectation is that people will be in the office outside of extenuating circumstances (like those mentioned above) or if they already have an approved remote work exception.”
Jassy admits that some employees may have organized their personal lives in such a way that it is not easy for them to return to the office five days a week, so in order to make the necessary adjustments, the new policy will not be implemented until January 2, 2025, three and a half months from now. That period will serve to accommodate office spaces, which had been organized with employees working remotely two days a week.
Obviously, remote work was not an option for most of Amazon’s approximately 1.5 million employees worldwide, who work on the ground in warehouses, fulfillment centers or moving packages. Still, the office staff exceeds 300,000 people. The return to the offices will increase activity in cities such as Seattle and Bellevue (Washington) or Arlington (Virginia), on the outskirts of Washington, among others.
The executive also wants to simplify the management structure, removing layers of command and complexity in decision-making where possible (so as to not have so many preparatory meetings before decision-making meetings, he gives as an example in his message). He asks employees to suggest ideas for eliminating unnecessary bureaucracy.
Amazon closed 2023 with a turnover of $574.785 billion, 12% more than the previous year. Net profits were $30.425 billion in 2023, compared to a loss of $2.7 billion in 2022.
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