Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has asked its employees to return to office physically at least three days a week. Jassy in an official blog post said it is easier to learn, model, practice, and strengthen the company’s culture when employees are in the office together most of the time and surrounded by colleagues. He said that it is especially true for new people.
“It’s hard to believe, but it’s been nearly three years since the pandemic began, and we recommended that all our employees who were able to work from home do so. We subsequently updated guidance a few times, with the last guidance (in the second half of 2021) being that director-level leaders would decide for their teams where they’d work, and we’d experiment for the next chunk of time,” the Amazon CEO said in the blog.
Stating the benefits of working from office, he said when you are in-person, people tend to be more engaged, observant, and attuned to what’s happening in the meetings and the cultural clues being communicated. For those unsure about why something happened or somebody reacted a certain way, it is easier to ask ad-hoc questions on the way to lunch, in the elevator, or the hallway; whereas when you are at home, you are less likely to do so.
“Because the pandemic lasted as long as it did, we were able to observe various models—some teams working exclusively from home, some in the office full-time together, and many flavors of hybrid—over a meaningful period of time. S-team listened to employees, watched how our teams performed, talked to leaders at other companies, and got together on several occasions to discuss if and how we should adjust our approach. The guiding principle in these conversations was to prioritize what would best enable us to make customers’ lives better and easier every day, and relentlessly invent to do so. Our respective views of what we thought was optimal evolved as the pandemic wore on and then eased,” Andy Jassy said in the blog.
Many companies have been calling their employees back to the office after the COVID-19 pandemic forced them to operate virtually.
Last month, Starbucks told its corporate employees to plan to work from the office three days a week. Disney is asking employees to plan for four in-office days starting in March. And Walmart said this week that it would require its tech teams to plan regular in-office work days.
“I’m also optimistic that this shift will provide a boost for the thousands of businesses located around our urban headquarter locations in the Puget Sound, Virginia, Nashville, and the dozens of cities around the world where our employees go to the office,” Jassy wrote.
E-commerce company Amazon earlier announced its decision to eliminate 18,000 job roles across the globe, which will impact about 1,000 employees in India.
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