Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Mandates Full-Time Office Return, Sparking Industry-Wide Debate

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Is Shepherding Big Tech's Return to Office

More than 95 tech companies in the U.S. still allow some extent of remote work. Amazon's abrupt shift could change that. Starting 2025, Amazon (AMZN) employees will be required to return to the office five days a week, according to a note published yesterday (Sept. 16) by the company's CEO Andy Jassy. "We've decided that we're going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of Covid," said the executive, who listed stronger collaboration, mentorship and connection between teams as key incentives behind the decision. Sign Up For Our Daily Newsletter Sign Up Thank you for signing up! By clicking submit, you agree to our <a href="http://observermedia.com/terms">terms of service</a> and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime. See all of our newsletters The mandate was cited alongside a slew of other initiatives intended to bolster the company culture at Amazon, where Jassy -- who became CEO in 2021 -- has worked for 27 years. "Keeping your culture strong is not a birthright. You have to work at it all the time," he said. Like most tech companies, Amazon allowed remote work during the pandemic and last year introduced a three-day office mandate. Going forward, it will no longer be a given that employees can spend two days a week working remotely, as Amazon's workforce will only be able to work from home under extenuating circumstances like illnesses and house emergencies. Locations that had assigned desks before Covid will also re-establish such arrangements, notably across Amazon's U.S. headquarters in Puget Sound, Wash., and Arlington, Va. Jassy also announced plans to streamline Amazon's layers of managers. S-team organizers, a term referring to members of the company's senior leadership team, will be asked to increase the ratio of individual workers to managers by 15 percent by the end of the first quarter of 2025. "Having fewer managers will remove layers and flatten organizations more than they are today," said the CEO. Jassy has also created a "Bureaucracy Mailbox" to allow employees to warn of instances of "bureaucracy or unnecessary process that's crept in and we can root out," he said, adding that he will read the emails himself and action them. Jassy's note is a reminder to Amazon "to operate like the world's largest startup." The executive's comments echo those made earlier this year by Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google (GOOGL). While speaking at Stanford in April, he pointed towards Google's remote work policy as a factor preventing it from dominating the A.I. arms race. "You're not going to let people work from home and only come in one day a week if you want to compete against the other startups," said Schmidt, who later walked back the statement and claimed he had misspoken about the work hours of Google, which currently mandates most employees to go into the office three days a week. Tech has been slow to embrace RTO Currently, only 33 percent of U.S. companies require employees to be in the office full-time, according to a survey conducted in the third quarter of 2024 by the software firm Flex Index. Within the tech industry, a staggering 96 percent of companies offer work location flexibility. Microsoft (MSFT), for example, still allows its employees to work remotely up to 50 percent of the time, while Meta (META) currently requires workers to come into the office three days a week. Apple (AAPL), too, maintains a three-day weekly office policy -- a stance the company's CEO Tim Cook praised while talking to CBS News in 2022, where he noted that a return to in-person enables "the serendipity of running into people and bouncing ideas" but reiterated Apple's commitment to allowing some remote days. "That doesn't mean we're going to be in here five days -- if you were here on a Friday, it would be a ghost town," said Cook.

Amazon CEO to employees: Return to five days a week starting this date, read his memo - Times of India

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that the company will require employees to work from the office five days a week beginning January 2, 2025, reversing its current hybrid work policy. "We've decided that we're going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID," Jassy wrote in a memo to staff. The move ends Amazon's previous three-day in-office requirement implemented last year. "If anything, the last 15 months we've been back in the office at least three days a week has strengthened our conviction about the benefits," Jassy stated. Jassy clarified that the new policy doesn't mean a rigid five-day office presence for all employees. "Before the pandemic, not everybody was in the office five days a week, every week," he explained. "If you or your child were sick, if you had some sort of house emergency, if you were on the road seeing customers or partners, if you needed a day or two to finish coding in a more isolated environment, people worked remotely. This was understood, and will be moving forward as well." However, Jassy emphasised that the default expectation has changed: "But, before the pandemic, it was not a given that folks could work remotely two days a week, and that will also be true moving forward -- our expectation is that people will be in the office" The new policy applies to all corporate employees, barring "extenuating circumstances" or pre-approved remote work exceptions. Amazon will also reinstate assigned desk arrangements at U.S. headquarters locations in the Puget Sound area and Arlington, Virginia. European offices will continue using agile desk setups. Jassy cited several benefits of in-person work, including easier collaboration, more effective brainstorming and invention, and stronger team connections. Alongside the return-to-office mandate, Jassy outlined plans to streamline Amazon's management structure, aiming to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025. These changes are part of Amazon's effort to "operate like the world's largest startup," with Jassy emphasising the need for "strong urgency, high ownership, fast decision-making, scrappiness and frugality, deeply-connected collaboration." To address potential bureaucracy, Jassy announced the creation of a "Bureaucracy Mailbox" for employees to report unnecessary processes. The new policy may face pushback from employees. Previous return-to-office plans sparked protests at Amazon's Seattle headquarters in May 2023. To ease the transition, Amazon is giving staff over three months to adjust before the January 2025 implementation date. "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 acknowledged. The TOI Tech Desk is a dedicated team of journalists committed to delivering the latest and most relevant news from the world of technology to readers of The Times of India. TOI Tech Desk's news coverage spans a wide spectrum across gadget launches, gadget reviews, trends, in-depth analysis, exclusive reports and breaking stories that impact technology and the digital universe. Be it how-tos or the latest happenings in AI, cybersecurity, personal gadgets, platforms like WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and more; TOI Tech Desk brings the news with accuracy and authenticity.