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Amazon announced Monday that it is ending remote work — much to the dismay of some of its employees.
Online and in internal channels, employees sounded off on CEO Andy Jassy’s mandate that workers return to the office five days a week starting Jan 2, 2025.
“Amazon (AMZN) has announced 5 day RTO, which is unfortunate because I’m interested in working for a living, not live-action role playing and virtue signaling,” CJ Felli, a system development engineer for Amazon Web Services, wrote on Linkedin. “If you have remote opportunities available, please message me. Nothing is off the table. I’d rather go back to school than work in an office again.”
Tamia Reed, a data center technician at Amazon Web Services, wrote on LinkedIn that she was “disheartened” by the decision.
“For many of us, remote work was not just a convenience but a necessary shift towards a more flexible and balanced professional life. This abrupt change undermines the progress we’ve made in embracing diverse work styles and accommodating different personal needs,” Reed wrote. “I hope Amazon will reconsider and find a way to support both their business needs and their employees’ diverse work preferences.”
Others took to internal channels to express their frustration, especially that Jassy said the company was returning to its policy before the pandemic. One employee wrote that new policy is “significantly more strict and out of its mind than many teams operated under pre-covid. This is not ‘going back’ to how it was before. It’s just going backward,” according to Business Insider.
“What ever happened to ‘Striving to be Earth’s Best Employer,” another employee, referencing Amazon’s principles, wrote in a message viewed by BI.
“Can I negotiate my manager to PIP me,” a different employee said, referencing a performance improvement plan. “Take my money and leave?”
Amazon also announced on Monday that it plans to increase the worker-to-manager ratio, which could lead to layoffs. Jassy, who was led the retail giant since 2021, said the move will “remove layers and flatten organizations more than they are today.”