Amazon has ended its remote work policy. The company has told its employees that they must come back to the office five days a week. The new working-from-office policy will kick off in early January next year. The tech giant’s employees aren’t happy about the decision. Many of them have expressed their feelings about the new work policy.
Amazon is ending its remote work policy by the end of December 2024
In a memo to staff on Monday, Amazon’s chief executive Andy Jassy said that the company is ending remote work facilities. The remote work policy will end by the end of December 2024. The company has asked its employees to join the offices for five days a week from January 2, 2025. Amazon would also end hot-desking and bring back assigned floor plans in its US buildings. Amazon ending remote work is one of the strictest corporate backdowns on remote work, which has become common since the pandemic.
“We’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID,” chief executive Andy Jassy wrote in the memo. “We’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective”, he added further.
It’s worth noting that Jassy has long been known as a critic of remote working. However, the company still allowed people to work from home two days a week, even before the pandemic.
Amazon employees are furious about the decision
Amazon employees are not happy about the company’s decision to end remote work. According to reports, online and in internal channels, Amazon staff sounded off Jassy’s mandate regarding work from home. Many employees expressed in online channels that they were “disheartened” by the company’s decision. Notably, some said that remote work was not just a convenience, but an important shift towards professional and personal life.
Amazon recently also announced its plans to reduce managers, which could lead to layoffs. The brand is planning to increase the worker-to-manager ratio. However, there’s no word when exactly the new change will take place.