Amazon executive defends controversial office policy

One of the top executives of Amazon defended the company’s new five-day-per-week in-office policy, on Thursday, suggesting that employees who do not support the change can seek employment elsewhere.

Speaking at an all-hands meeting for Amazon Web Services (AWS), unit CEO Matt Garman stated that nine out of ten workers he has spoken with support the new policy, which is set to take effect in January, according to a transcript reviewed by Reuters.

“If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s OK, there are other companies around,” Garman said.

“By the way, I don’t mean that in a bad way,” he added, emphasizing the importance of working together in person.

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Garman argued that in-person collaboration is crucial for innovation.

“I’m actually quite excited about this change,” Garman said. “I know not everyone is.”

He noted the current three-day policy has not been effective.

“We didn’t really accomplish anything like we didn’t get to work together and learn from each other,” he explained.

Amazon, the world’s second-largest private employer behind Walmart, has adopted a stricter return-to-office policy than other tech giants like Google, Meta and Microsoft, which have two to three-day in-office requirements.

“When we want to really, really innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we’re not in person,” he said.

Garman also highlighted the difficulty of adhering to Amazon’s leadership principles with a three-day workweek.

“You can’t internalize them by reading them on the website, you really have to experience them day-to-day,” he said.

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He pointed out that the principle of “disagree and commit,” which encourages employees to voice their opinions but then fully support the final decision, is challenging to practice remotely.

“I don’t know if you guys have tried to disagree via a Chime call,” he said, referring to Amazon’s internal messaging and calling function. “It’s very hard.”

Bill Kaczaraba is a content editor at MyNorthwest. You can read his stories here. Follow Bill on X, formerly known as Twitter, here and email him here.