An Amazon spokesman declined to comment [File]
|Image source: Reuters
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said during an all-hands meeting on Tuesday that the plan to require employees to work in the office five days a week was not an attempt to force attrition or satisfy city leaders, as many employees had suggested. Require.
The controversial plan to require employees to come to Amazon offices every day starting next year instead of the current three days has caused alarm among employees who say the plan is more restrictive than other tech companies and will hurt efficiency due to commute times. .
Employees who consistently failed to comply were told they would “voluntarily resign” and were banned from using company computers.
“A lot of people I’ve met believe that the reason we’re doing this is because it’s a backdoor layoff or that we have some kind of agreement with one or more cities,” Jassy said, according to minutes of the meeting reviewed by Reuters. .
“I can tell you that neither statement is true. You know, this is not a cost play for us. This is very much about our culture and strengthening our culture,” he said.
An Amazon spokesman declined to comment.
Last month, Matt Garman, chief executive of cloud-computing unit Amazon Web Services, suggested that employees who didn’t want to comply with full employment requirements could leave for another company, saying nine out of 10 employees he’d spoken to supported the change.
That prompted more than 500 Amazon employees to sign a letter imploring Garman to change the policy, noting that the company was doing well with fully remote operations and that the new rules would impact employees with families or medical issues more than others. The staff is bigger.
“We are alarmed by the non-data-driven explanation you gave for Amazon’s implementation of the five-day tenure period,” the letter said.
Amazon responded at the time that it was offering things like commuting benefits and parking fee subsidies to help with its return-to-office policies.
“It’s an adjustment,” Jassy said Tuesday. “I understand where a lot of people are, and we’re going to work together to adjust.”
Jassy added that the internal system for reporting excessive bureaucracy worked well and that the company had taken action on about 150 of the roughly 500 emails it received, without providing details.
“I hate bureaucracy,” he said. “One of the reasons I’m still at this company is because it’s not a political, bureaucratic place.”
Amazon last month reported a record third-quarter profit of $15.3 billion and said it expected a strong holiday quarter. The five-day term begins on January 2.
Published – November 6, 2024 09:51 AM (IST)
