It's Just Going Backwards: Amazon Employees Blat CEO Andy Jassy's Return To Office Mandate

The new policy, outlined in a memo, requires all Amazon employees to work from the office five days a week, except those with approved Remote Work Exceptions or those dealing with emergencies at home

After Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced the end of the company’s hybrid work policy, requiring employees to return to the office five days a week, many employees expressed their frustration on an internal Slack channel, according to a Business Insider report.

One employee described the mandate as “significantly more strict and out of its mind.” Speaking to the publication, the employee noted, “Please do note that this is (in a lot of cases) 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 backwards."

They were referring to Jassy’s memo, in which he stated that Amazon would revert to its pre-pandemic office setup. "To address the second issue of being better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other and our culture to deliver the absolute best for customers and the business, we’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of Covid. When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant,” the CEO wrote.

However, many employees did not share Jassy’s sentiments. “Can I negotiate my manager to PIP me,” one employee commented on Slack, referring to Amazon’s notoriously tough performance improvement plan, as quoted by Business Insider. “Take my money and leave?"

This decision has sparked criticism, with some employees referencing one of the company's famous leadership principles, "Whatever happened to 'Striving to be Earth's Best Employer?" Others have questioned CEO Andy Jassy's leadership skills.

One employee, quoted in a publication, wrote, "It's day 1169," referring to the number of days since Jassy became CEO on July 5, 2021. This comment is a nod to founder Jeff Bezos's philosophy that it's "always Day 1 at Amazon," meaning the company should always be "curious, nimble, and experimental." In contrast, a "Day 2 mentality" is associated with "stasis," "irrelevance," and "excruciating, painful decline."

The new policy, outlined in a memo, requires all Amazon employees to work from the office five days a week, except those with approved Remote Work Exceptions or those dealing with emergencies at home.