Amazon rejects suggestion that return to office policy is way of cutting jobs

Amazon has rejected suggestions that its mandate for staff to return to the office full-time is a method of cutting jobs through natural attrition.
Workers at the tech giant have anonymously expressed fears that the move will spur an exodus, providing the company with a way to cut back on staff numbers through natural attrition.
The speculation has cropped up on workers’ app Blind, where staff have been discussing a note sent to workers by chief executive Andy Jassy. It was subsequently published on Amazon’s public blog.
In the note, Mr Jassy said the company would require staff to work from an Amazon office five days a week from January next year, ending the current arrangement where staff attended the office for three days. The memo was also sent to Amazon’s Irish-based staff.
“This is an effort to strengthen our culture and ensure that our teams are connected so they can invent, collaborate and deliver the best results for our customers and the business,” a spokesman for Amazon said.
Others within the organisation have said the news came as no surprise, and that there had been hints of a potential five-day return to the office.
However, they acknowledged that some staff would choose to leave as the office requirements would not suit some individual set-ups.
Amazon’s decision marks yet another rollback of Covid-era policies that allowed staff to work remotely. It isn’t the only one that has changed its mind on the value of remote working.
In May 2020, Twitter (now X) told staff they could work from home forever. Fast forward to 2022, when new owner Elon Musk took over and announced that employees would have to return to the office unless they had a specific exemption.
On one hand, it is cheaper for companies to have smaller offices and fewer costs associated with in-person working. On the other, some companies are bemoaning the lack of interaction between staff and lost opportunities for collaboration.
Research on remote working has been mixed. One study from Stanford found that remote workers were 9 per cent more productive two years after the pandemic when compared to in-office workers; other studies contracted this finding and said staff were less productive at home, and a hybrid work model was preferable.
It may also trigger a wider move in the tech sector to row back on remote working policies were instituted during the pandemic, industry watchers say.
What are other tech companies currently asking of staff?
Irish-founded fintech Stripe has, like many tech companies, a varying policy on remote work. Around a third of staff are fully remote, and remain so, the company said. However, Stripe also has staff that are assigned to one of its offices, whether that is in Ireland, the UK, the US or further afield. That cohort attends the office 50 per cent of the time.
Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp owner Meta has a three-day office policy, which came into effect a year ago. From September 5th 2023, anyone who was assigned to an office to work – ie had not been hired as a fully remote worker – was expected to appear in person three days a week. Those who had remote working already approved would retain it.
However, there was also a requirement for teams to remain in touch to facilitate collaboration and team-building, which gives the company a little leeway.
“We believe that distributed work will continue to be important in the future, particularly as our technology improves,” a Meta spokesperson said at the time. “In the near-term, our in-person focus is designed to support a strong, valuable experience for our people who have chosen to work from the office, and we’re being thoughtful and intentional about where we invest in remote work.”
Google is one of the companies that built the very collaborative tools that facilitated some remote work, such as Google Workspace.
It also went fully remote for suitable roles during the pandemic, which left many of its buildings standing underused or empty.
Some staff left the country during that period; some analyst estimates put the figure at 30 per cent of Google’s Irish workforce, but sources with knowledge of the situation said that figure was too high.
In September 2020, parent company Alphabet told staff to return to the country in which they were employed by the end of the year. Two years later, staff were asked to return to the office three days per week, which has remained the requirement to date.
The pandemic and remote working has been good to Microsoft. The company has a suite of productivity tools that are aimed at collaboration anywhere and anytime through Office 365 and Teams. So it makes sense then that they facilitate hybrid working in its own organisation.
Microsoft’s policies differ according to the roles on offer. However, the company largely adopts a 50 per cent hybrid working arrangement. Anything above that must be approved by managers.
Apple has largely committed to hybrid working. Corporate Apple staff are expected to attend the office three days a week, with the company introducing the return in April 2022 with an initial one day per week.
From May 23rd, employees were required to be at least three days a week, with the company specifying Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays as office days. However, there was pushback from staff. An open letter sent to the executive team expressed disappointment with the mandate.
“Office-bound work is a technology from the last century, from the era before ubiquitous video-call-capable internet and everyone being on the same internal chat application,” it said.
“But the future is about connecting when it makes sense, with people who have relevant input, no matter where they are based.”