An Amazon executive on Thursday defended the company's controversial five-day work week policy, saying those who don't support it can move to another company.
At an AWS all-hands meeting, AWS division CEO Matt Garman said nine out of 10 employees he's spoken to support the new policy, which goes into effect in January, according to a transcript seen by Reuters.
Those who don't want to comply can leave, he said.
“If someone doesn't work well and doesn't want to work in that environment, that's OK. There are other companies around,” Garman said.
“When we really, really want to innovate interesting products, I've never seen you do that when you're not in person.”
The policy upset many Amazon employees, who said commuting wasted time and the benefits of working in an office were not supported by independent data.
Amazon has implemented a three-day in-office policy, but CEO Andy Jassy said last month it would move to five days for the retailer to “invent, collaborate, and connect.” Then he said.
Some employees who have not complied so far have been said to have “voluntarily resigned” and been locked out of the company's systems.
Amazon, the world's second-largest private employer after Walmart, has taken a tougher stance on returning to the office than many of its tech peers, including Google, Meta and Microsoft, which have two- to three-day in-office policies. There is.
“I'm actually very excited about this change,” Garman said. “We know that's not everyone,” he said, noting that it would be too difficult to meet the company's goals with just the currently required three days of in-office work.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.
Garman said that under the three-day policy, “nothing really got accomplished, including not being able to work together and learn from each other.”
In particular, Garman said the company's Leadership Principles, which govern how Amazon should operate, are too difficult to adhere to under current policies.
“You can't understand it just by reading about it on a website. You have to actually experience it every day,” he said.
The first method is to commit without agreeing. This is understood to mean employees can air their grievances but must participate in projects as directed by their leaders, which Garman says is not ideal for remote working. .
“I don't know if you've tried to object through chime calls,” he said, referring to the company's internal messaging and calling features. “It's very difficult.”
