Hundreds of employees at Amazon’s corporate offices have expressed their displeasure over CEO Andy Jassy’s directive for them to return to the office five days a week beginning early next year, according to a report.
A survey that has been circulated internally among Amazonians finds that the average employee at the company is “strongly dissatisfied” with the return-to-office edict, according to Fortune.
The survey was created by Amazon employees who then shared it to at least 30,000 members who logged into a Slack channel called “remote advocacy,” according to Fortune.
The magazine was able to see the results of the survey, which found that respondents had marked down a 1.4 on of a scale of up to 5 — with 1 meaning “strongly dissatisfied” and 5 being “strongly satisfied.”
The authors of the survey said they plan to aggregate and share the results by email with Jassy and other executives so as to “provide them with clear insight into the impact of this policy on employees, including the challenges identified and proposed solutions.”
“We are seeking honest, constructive feedback on the recent decision to require a 5-day return to the office schedule,” the survey introduction reads.
The Post has sought comment from Amazon.
Several Amazon employees told Fortune that they opposed Jassy’s decision because they said it would impact productivity during in-office workdays.
They also said the move is indicative of management’s lack of trust in its employees and managers.
“Amazon got used to people having an extra 5-10 hours a week to work because we weren’t commuting,” an employee told Fortune.
“RTO means that we no longer have the extra time to commit to Amazon and expectations of employees needs to adjust to reflect that.”
The employee added that “we need to accept that RTO places hard limits on meeting times.”
“I can’t hop onto an 8 a.m. meeting with the folks in HQ2 or the East Coast anymore,” the employee said.
“When I was at home, I could jump on early or late meetings pretty easily, but I’m physically unable to do that now.”
Single parents will also be adversely impacted by the decision, according to employees who spoke to Fortune.
But others agreed with Jassy, saying that the reasons people give for needing to work from home would have been unthinkable before the pandemic.
The return-to-office mandate is a sharp change from its current hybrid policy, which requires employees to work from the office at least three days a week.
“When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant,” Jassy wrote last week.
“I’ve previously explained these benefits, but in summary, we’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another.”
