It's not a good time to be a remote worker for Amazon right now. What was previously promised as a permanent remote working setup is being taken back, and employees won't have a say in it any longer. Workers will have to choose between going back to the office or losing their jobs.
Amazon CEO Puts His Foot Down
The retail giant has never been more serious about its back-to-office mandate until now. Despite remote employees adamantly going against the new policy, Amazon is not backing down and is instead giving an ultimatum to those who refuse to comply.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, as a follow-up to the announced mandate back in February, says that employees must return to work and that it was "past the time to disagree and commit." The company has already demanded workers to return by May 1st.
The executive has lost all patience regarding the matter stating: "If you can't disagree and commit, I also understand that, but it's probably not going to work out for you at Amazon." The affected employees will have to come to the office at least three days a week.
Jassy reasoned that "it's not right" for all teammates to be in three days a week and for people to refuse to do so." according to Gizmodo. The decision has already been met with disapproval as far back as February when workers staged a walkout to protest against the mandate.
Around 1,900 employees signed in to join the protest, although evidently, that failed to sway the executives at the retail giant as they continued to force workers to return to the office. This could be a problem for those who live far from the on-site location of Amazon.
Amazon Said It Had No Plans to Implement Hybrid Work
Back in September 2022, CEO Andy Jassy expressed that Amazon had no plans to reinstate a hybrid work setup, stating that he doesn't "really believe that we're going to end up coming back to the office" during a Code 2022 conference.
Jassy also said that they have to deliver the right results for customers, and people understand whether they work remotely or in an office that that has to be the number one priority. As a result, the company was "trying lots of experiments" and that they will "see over the next year."
It looks like those experiments yielded nothing as employees are now forced to return. He did imply that the company will assess the situation first before making a final decision, but that doesn't make it any easier for employees who cannot comply with the mandate.
As mentioned in CNET, the Amazon CEO also acknowledged that there were some aspects that were more difficult when it came to video calls as opposed to in-person meetings, such as bonding as a team.
A lot of other tech companies have already adopted the hybrid work setup, although most did not give hope that remote work was going to be permanent. According to reports, Jassy evaded questions about data and information that would justify the return-to-work mandate.
