Amazon CEO Andy Jassy sent a memo to employees notifying them that the company would require corporate workers to be back in the office five days a week, starting in January. The strict RTO mandate tightens requirements from last year that workers be on-site at least three days a week.
Jassy wrote, “We've decided that we're going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID. We continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant.”
He really buried the lede though — finally breaking the news ten paragraphs into the memo — and only using the words “five days a week” for the first time in passing in the eleventh paragraph. Maybe I'm just a stickler for direct communication, but I found the memo to be self-serving and patronizing to employees, breaking many of the company's own rules on communication.
The first few paragraphs were spent patting himself and Amazon on the back for progress the company has made in the areas of Stores, AWS, and Advertising, followed by a personal anecdote about how he didn't plan on being at Amazon for 27 years. Then he spoke about culture for several paragraphs, made a few minor announcements, and eventually made the big reveal (900 words into the memo) that Amazon is pulling the rug out from every worker who enjoys their current hybrid work-from-home scenario.
RTO 5 days a week?! That's an opening statement, not a tenth paragraph announcement!
I'd imagine most employees found out about the 5 day/week mandate from either the news or other employees who actually made it that far in the memo.
Other announcements in the memo include:
- Strengthening Amazon culture remains a top priority for Jassy and the executive team.
- Amazon is increasing the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025 to remove layers of bureaucracy and increase efficiency.
- Jassy created a “Bureaucracy Mailbox” where employees can whistleblow any examples they discover of bureaucracy or unnecessary process that's crept into the company (such as returning to the office 5 days a week).
- Amazon is returning to assigned desk arrangements in many offices, as opposed to the “hot desk” system that they adopted during the pandemic, where employees decided which days they were going to come in and then reserved a desk.
Thoughts and prayers to all Amazon employees impacted by the news.