Amazon Ends Work From Home, Staff Ordered to Come Five Days a Week

Amazon is set to revoke its hybrid work policy and order its staff to come to the office five days a week. This is as per the BBC.

Andy Jassy, CEO of Amazon announced the new rule to the staff in a memo. The change in the work policy will reportedly come into effect in January. Amazon staff were allowed to work two days from home.

Jassy stated that the move will aid the staff to be better poised "to invent, collaborate and be connected with each other".  

It is reported that the Amazon CEO has long been very skeptical about remote work.

In his message, Jassy stated that he was concerned that Amazon which preserved the intensity of a start-up while growing out to be a tech-giant was seeing its work culture being watered down due to flexible work hours and its layered bureaucracy.

The company said that the staff could work from home in difficult and unusual circumstances such as when there is a sick child or house emergency.

Jassy said that unless they have been granted an exemption, it is expected people will be in the office outside of extenuating circumstances.

In his memo, he said that Amazon's experience with its move to a hybrid policy had "strengthened our conviction about the benefits" of working in person.

The company would also bring back "assigned desk arrangements in locations that were previously organised that way" including its US headquarters.

The move to get back its corporate employees to the office has not been short of any pitfalls. The US-based company sees tension within its own ranks which employs more than 1.5mn people across the world in full and part-time roles, including many corporate roles.

Last year, its staff headquartered in Seattle staged a protest as the company reportedly tightened the full remote work allowance that was put forth in place during the COVID-19 pandemic.