An unexpected scenario has broken out on Amazon between the CEO of the company and the workers who have refused to work in the office. The CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, has issued a new policy that mandates those working for the company to return to the office.
Since the covid pandemic broke out, Amazon and other big tech companies like Microsoft began to adopt the hybrid working system. The hybrid working system only allowed employees of the companies to come to the office when it was vital.
What Happened?
The CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, announced in a memo that Amazon employees were required to return to the office after the company updated its policy. The memos started with, "We subsequently updated guidance a few times, with the last guidance (in the second half of 2021) being that Director-level leaders would decide where their teams would work, and we’d experiment for the next chunk of time."
According to the company's CEO, the newly updated policy was created because the company discovered that it was much better for Amazon employees to work at the office. Since the covid pandemic, Amazon's open roles were usually work-from-home jobs. But the newly updated policy mandates employees to come to the office thrice weekly.
According to the Amazon CEO, "It’s easier to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture when we’re in the office most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues." The Amazon CEO also highlighted that collaboration is easier when they work from the office. The last reason the company drafted the new policy was that" Learning from one another is easier in person. Walking a few feet to somebody’s space and asking them how to do something or how they’ve handled a particular situation is much easier than Chiming or Slacking them."
Amazon Employees' Reaction to the New Policy
The reaction of Amazon employees to the new policy is rebellious. A group of tech workers for the company even created a Slack channel filled with protests against the new policy from the CEO of Amazon. From the details obtained from the petitions, Amazon employees were urging the CEO and top executives of the company to revert the policy.
The Slack channel the Amazon employees created now has about 16,000 members, and over 5,000 people have signed the petition against the new policy. The screenshots of the channel obtained by CNBC showed how bitter Amazon employees were about the new change.
One of them spoke about the new policy saying that Amazon is not worth being called the best employer in the world. "By arbitrarily forcing return-to-office without providing data to support it and despite clear evidence that it is the wrong decision for employees, Amazon has failed its role as earth’s best employer," an employee complained.
"I believe this decision will be detrimental to our business and is antithetical to how we make decisions at Amazon," another said in the screenshot.