Amazon employees return to the office beginning May 1
May 1, 2023, 8:31 AM | Updated: 9:06 am
The exterior of The Spheres is seen at the Amazon.com Inc. headquarters on November 14, 2022 in Seattle, Washington. (Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)
(Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)
Back in February, Amazon officially announced the end of April will also see the end of their full-time work-from-home policy for corporate employees, according to an announcement from CEO Andy Jassy.
Employees are now required to spend at least three days a week working from the office, according to a memo from Jassy shared with Amazon employees.
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According to Jassy, working remotely full-time had impacted company culture and made it harder to collaborate on important innovations.
“It’s easier to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture when we’re in the office together most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues,” Jassy wrote. “It’s especially true for new people (and we’ve hired a lot of people in the pandemic); but it’s also true for people of all tenures at Amazon. When you’re in-person, people tend to be more engaged, observant, and attuned to what’s happening in the meetings and the cultural clues being communicated.”
This is a major shift in the company’s policy of allowing individual managers to decide when and if their employees are required to be in the office.
Jassy said that a team of top-level executives and himself decided that employees need to be in the office “the majority of the time.”
A “small minority” of roles won’t be required to work from the office, though, including sales staff and customer support.
Amazon isn’t the only tech company that has reversed course on its work-from-home policy, with Google bringing employees back into the office three days a week in the spring of 2022.
While the change is expected to have some hiccups, Jassy acknowledged it is essential that, in the coming months, staff moves back to in-person work to participate in Amazon’s company culture.
“I know that for some employees, adjusting again to a new way of working will take some time. But I’m very optimistic about the positive impact this will have in how we serve and invent on behalf of customers, as well as on the growth and success of our employees,” Jassy said.
Amazon has started implementing the change as of May 1.
