A leaked internal meeting from Amazon shows just how far the online retail giant is willing to go to enforce return-to-office mandates.
Key Details
- On August 28, Business Insider reported details from an internal “fishbowl” fireside chat meeting at Amazon from earlier this month.
- CEO Andy Jassy made it clear that the company has made a “judgment call” on remote work and declared employees who do not return to the office will be subject to “voluntary resignation.”
- He says employees who do not comply with the return-to-office mandate have a grim future with the company, and “It’s probably not going to work out for you.”
Why It’s News
The corporate world has been pushing back heavily against remote work for the past year. Business leaders have been claiming that the practice has come at a high cost to large companies, believing that remote work harms productivity and profitability, damages office cohesion and relationships, harms mentorship opportunities and career growth, and wastes valuable office space.
Amazon, in particular, has been aggressive in its push to crack down on remote work. It announced in February that employees would be required to return to the office at least three days per week. The company has been tracking badge usage for employees, which resulted in a May walkout among hundreds of corporate employees to protest the policy. 30,000 Amazon employees signed a petition to complain against the mandates, which the company rejected.
Multiple employees contested the decision in August’s meeting, asking the famously data-driven company to reveal the productivity data they are basing their decision on—which Jassy declined to do, saying employees who disagree should leave. Amazon subsequently told Axios that its remote work policies have evolved over time in parallel with the pandemic, but it never had data to suggest that remote work was viable in the long term.
Notable Quote
“It’s past the time to disagree and commit. And if you can’t disagree and commit, I also understand that, but it’s probably not going to work out for you at Amazon because we are going back to the office at least three days a week, and it’s not right for all of our teammates to be in three days a week and for people to refuse to do so,” says Jassy.