Amazon announced on Monday that it will require employees to come into the office five days a week starting January 2nd.
“We have made the decision to return to working in offices, just as we did before the pandemic began. Looking back over the past five years, we continue to believe that there are significant benefits to being together in the office,” CEO Andy Jassy said in a memo to employees.
E-commerce giant Amazon previously required employees to come to work three days a week, but Jassy's memo said Amazon employees could claim “extenuating circumstances” or ask upper management for an exception.
“I would say that over the last 15 months, as we've been back in the office at least three days a week, our belief in the benefits has only strengthened,” he said, citing improved collaboration and alignment between teams and “strengthening company culture” as reasons for the new requirement.
As part of its restructuring, Amazon aims to reduce the number of managers in its organization and increase the number of individual contributors to reduce bureaucracy by the end of the first quarter of 2025. Like other tech companies, Amazon grew rapidly at the start of the coronavirus pandemic and then made widespread layoffs of employees.
“We plan to bring back reserved seating at locations that previously had reserved seating, including our U.S. headquarters (Puget Sound and Arlington),” Jassy said.
Employers and employees have been clashing over how many days a week employees must spend in the office ever since coronavirus lockdowns first forced workers to stay home four years ago. Last May, workers at Amazon's Seattle headquarters went on strike to protest changes to the e-commerce giant's climate change policy, layoffs and orders to return to the office.
“Before the pandemic, the ability to work remotely two days a week was not the norm, and that will remain the case going forward,” Jassy wrote. “We expect that people will still come into the office unless there are extraordinary circumstances.”
