Amazon is asking workers to return to the office five days a week starting in January, marking the first of the Big Tech companies to require a full week in office post pandemic.
Chief executive Andy Jassy announced the news in a message to employees Monday, telling them they will be expected to follow the new policy beginning Jan. 2. Before the change, Amazon employees were required to be in the office three days a week.
The news at Amazon comes as more companies pull back on remote work and crack down on enforcing return-to-office policies. Though Amazon is the first Big Tech company requiring a full week in the office, other tech companies have slowly been tweaking their policies over the past couple of years and taking some hard-line stances. SAP, AT&T and Dell are among those that have rolled back more flexible policies. As a result, some workers have pushed back with threats and protests, or even quit over the new policies.
Tech companies were among the first to openly embrace flexible work policies during the height of the pandemic, touting that the companies had found successful ways to operate in remote environments. But more than four years later, many of those companies have brought employees back to the office, at least part time. Even pandemic darling Zoom, which helped tens of thousands of people work remotely, has called people back to the office part time. Other companies, outside of tech that have reversed remote work policies include Disney, Goldman Sachs and Bank of America.
Jassy said Amazon’s new policy would be similar to the pre-pandemic era: Employees may still have some exceptions to the rule if their child is sick, they have an emergency or they need to work in an isolated environment, for example. But they will no longer be able to work from home two days a week without a reason, unless they have a remote work exception approved by their supervisor.
The company did not comment on how it intends to enforce the rule. And while Jassy recognizes that some employees “may have set up their personal lives in such a way that returning to the office consistently five days per week will require some adjustments,” he expects everyone to be compliant by Jan. 2.
