Starting from May 1, Jassy announced that Amazon would need corporate staffers to spend at least three days a week at the office. The CEO said that he and Amazon’s S-team, or leadership team, decided that in-person work would make it easier for employees to collaborate and invent together.
In October 2021, the e-commerce giant’s pandemic-era policy was updated last and it was left up to managers to decide how frequently their teams needed to be in the office. In the last few years, the company’s white-collar employees have used hybrid and fully remote work arrangements, as per a report.
According to the report by CNBC, on Friday, the employees made a Slack channel to advocate for remote work and voice opinions about the new return-to-work policy. More than 14,000 employees have joined the Slack channel so far.
The staffers have also signed a petition, addressed to Jassy and the S-team, that requests the leadership to undo the new policy, saying it “runs contrary” to Amazon’s positions on diversity and inclusion, affordable housing, sustainability, and focus on being the “Earth’s Best Employer”.
According to a draft of the petition, which was previously reported by Business Insider, “We, the undersigned, call for Amazon to protect its role and status as a global retail and tech leader by immediately cancelling the RTO policy and issuing a new policy that allows employees to work remotely or more flexibly, if they choose to do so, as their team and job role permits.”
Concerning return-to-office guidance, an Amazon spokesperson referred back to Jassy’s blog post.
According to the employees, Jassy earlier mentioned that there is no “one-size-fits-all” approach for how teams work best, praising remote work’s benefits.
“Many employees trusted these statements and planned for a life where their employer wouldn’t force them to return to the office,” a draft of the petition states. “The RTO mandate shattered their trust in Amazon’s leaders.”
Workers who moved during the pandemic or were hired for a remote position, are worried about how the policy will affect them. A more distributed workforce has permitted Amazon to hire more employees outside of its key tech hubs, such as Seattle, New York and Northern California, in the last three years.
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