According to the report, Amazon employees are facing challenges such as not having enough desks for everyone, crowded parking lots, an alarming spike in workplace theft, and having to return to the office five days a week. It accused the company of being grossly unprepared.
“Our upper management 'leadership' has screwed this up horribly, like so many other things,” one Amazon employee said via the company's Slack. business insider Reported.
“It makes me wonder what other bad decisions will impact the company next year.”
Among the complaints was that despite a return-to-office mandate that took effect earlier this year, many people still spend much of their day video chatting from home.
In September, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy (who took over in 2021) announced a mandatory return to the office, a significant shift from Amazon's hybrid three-day week policy at the time. It was.
He said the in-person strategy is an effort to foster collaboration among Amazon's employees (about 350,000 of its 1.5 million employees worldwide).
“We want to operate like the biggest startup company in the world,” Jassy said.
But the current situation makes it difficult to foster in-person collaboration, according to seven Amazon employees interviewed by BI about their in-office experiences and who shared Slack messages with the outlet.
Some meeting rooms didn't have enough chairs, and there weren't enough meeting rooms for everyone, one employee told the publication.
Officials said the employees were used to receiving personal phone calls all day long at home.
Now, back in the office, they're ducking into empty conference rooms to take calls, leading to staff shortages, and some managers are having private conversations with employees outside. Yes, the employee said.
An Amazon spokesperson dismissed the complaint.
“Of the hundreds of offices we have around the world, relatively few are not ready to welcome everyone back fully five days a week,” a representative told the Post in a statement.
“It is inaccurate and misleading to say that the majority of our teammates are not ready to return to the office.”
Still, the report says just getting to the office is a challenge.
Some people complained that they were turned away because their company's parking lot was full, and others complained that they had to join a meeting from the street because there was so much traffic on their way to the office, according to Slack messages. It is said that there were also
Once staff overcome the challenges of getting into offices and finding desks, some lamented the lack of in-person discussions as many meetings remain virtual, BI said.
“We have had very few team discussions during our time here,” one employee wrote on Slack.
An Amazon spokesperson told the Post: “While we have heard improvement ideas from a relatively small number of employees and are working to address them, these anonymous anecdotes indicate that we are not working with most teams. It doesn’t reflect the sentiments I’m hearing from my mates.”
Employees also complained of a lack of office etiquette, including theft, the report said.
Employees at Amazon's Toronto office said their personal items were repeatedly stolen from their desks.
“It's shameful that we can't trust each other by leaving our personal belongings unattended, even though we are highly paid adults,” one worker wrote on Slack (BI's opinion).
Hygiene also became an issue, and one employee was forced to post a “survival guide'' on “Blind,'' an anonymous bulletin board site for office workers.
“Before you leave the launch pad (home), please implement personal hygiene protocols. Yes, that means actually taking that shower you've been avoiding since WFH began,” the message said. Ta.
In another post, he implored a co-worker to flush the toilet after using it, saying “restroom stalls are not 'serverless' environments.”
A third post reminded colleagues that “footwear is not optional.”
“This is not a beach sprint retrospective. Please keep your toes in their proper containers (shoes),” the message said.
