The vast majority of Amazon (AMZN) workers are overwhelmingly sad with CEO Andy Jassy’s new return-to-office (RTO) mandate and are contemplating searching for new jobs, in response to a latest survey carried out by Crew Blind, an nameless social platform for verified tech staff. A ballot of greater than 2,500 Amazon workers discovered that 91 p.c are “dissatisfied” with the brand new five-day in-office coverage, which can come into impact in January 2025. “My morale for this job is gone,” one stated in a put up.
Like most different tech corporations, Amazon embraced distant work in the course of the pandemic and has since reverted to a three-day in-office coverage. Now, in an effort to rebuild the corporate’s tradition and enhance collaboration, Jassy’s RTO measure will solely enable workers to make money working from home underneath extenuating circumstances like diseases. The change will assist guarantee Amazon operates “just like the world’s largest startup,” in response to the CEO.
Amazon workers don’t seem to share Jassy’s sentiments. Blind’s survey was carried out between Sept. 17 (a day after Jassy introduced the RTO mandate) to Sept. 19 and located that three quarters of polled staff are contemplating searching for one other job due to the brand new coverage, whereas 32 p.c stated they know somebody who has stop lately in response to Jassy’s mandate.
Amazon’s HR is scrambling to fill the void. “I simply had an Amazon recruiter blow up my telephone and inbox 5 instances within the final 24 hours to get me to offer my availability for an onsite interview,” stated a Microsoft (MSFT) worker on Blind, including that the recruiter stated hiring managers are annoyed by the quantity of Amazon candidates who’ve dropped out of interview processes in response to the information.
For Amazon workers who had been employed remotely, some are viewing the mandate as a thinly veiled technique to chop headcount. The corporate’s workforce reportedly surged by practically 75 p.c between March 2020 and September 2021 alone. “A lot of these people are involved that they don’t dwell anyplace near an workplace, they usually had been employed with the expectation of being distant,” Rick Chen, Blind’s head of public relations, instructed Observer.
Solely a small proportion of workers are okay with RTO, with 9 p.c saying they’re “happy” with Jassy’s mandate. “There have been some defenders of the coverage, people that desire to work within the workplace and disliked distant work,” stated Chen, who famous that just a few Amazon workers additionally urged that the tip of distant work was attributable to just a few “dangerous apples’” who “ruined it for everybody by taking quiet holidays or slacking off.”
Amazon’s RTO mandate sends chill throughout Large Tech
One other trending response to Amazon’s RTO coverage is concern amongst different Large Tech staff that their firm is subsequent. Along with anxious workers from Apple (AAPL), Meta (META) and Google (GOOGL), all of which additionally at present have a three-day in-office coverage, Microsoft professionals—who’re allowed to work remotely 50 p.c of the time—have overwhelmingly voiced considerations that Microsoft will comply with Amazon’s lead, in response to Chen. This might be as a result of a geographic connection, as each Amazon and Microsoft are based mostly close to Seattle, Wash., he stated.
Such feedback echo these made in 2022 and 2023 when massive tech corporations introduced layoffs one after the opposite, stated Chen. “The was a sense amongst professionals then, and it’s resurfacing now, that these corporations are shifting in lockstep with each other.”
Blind has seen an uncommon uptick in search quantity for the time period “RTO” since Jassy’s announcement. Whereas the phrase was beforehand searched by 500 workers each day firstly of 2024, that determine has since doubled this month to 1,000, Chen stated. Different key phrases like “distant work” and “versatile work” have additionally gained reputation in lieu of beforehand frequent search phrases like “layoffs,” “supervisor” and “promotion.”
“It’s a really excessive shift when it comes to what’s capturing Amazon professionals’ thoughts area proper now,” stated Chen.
