In a letter to staff, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has said employees now won't be expected back in the office 3 days a week, and that a decision on remote working will be left to individual managers.
In communication posted in September 2021, and January 2022, the suggestion was that all Amazon employees should try to be in the office at least three days a week.
The letter from Jassy explains the change in policy; "First, none of us know the definitive answers to these questions, especially long term. Second, at a company of our size, there is no one-size-fits-all approach for how every team works best. And third, we’re going to be in a stage of experimenting, learning, and adjusting for a while as we emerge from this pandemic. All of this led us to change course a bit.
"For our corporate roles, instead of specifying that people work a baseline of three days a week in the office, we’re going to leave this decision up to individual teams. This decision will be made team by team at the director level. We expect that there will be teams that continue working mostly remotely, others that will work some combination of remotely and in the office, and still others that will decide customers are best served having the team work mostly in the office. We’re intentionally not prescribing how many days or which days—this is for directors to determine with their senior leaders and teams. The decisions should be guided by what will be most effective for our customers; and not surprisingly, we will all continue to be evaluated by how we deliver for customers, regardless of where the work is performed.
"At this stage, we want most of our people close enough to their core team that they can easily travel to the office for a meeting within a day’s notice. We also know that many people have found the ability to work remotely from a different location for a few weeks at a time inspiring and reenergizing. We want to support this flexibility and will continue to offer those corporate employees, who can work effectively away from the office, the option to work up to four weeks per year fully remote from any location within your country of employment.
"As almost all of you are hearing about this change for the first time, and will likely be eager to learn what your team’s plan is moving forward, I’d ask you to be patient with your leaders as it’ll likely take them a few weeks to develop and communicate their plan. We’re anticipating that you’ll hear from your leaders about these specific plans before January 3, which is the date we set previously for people to start returning to the office at least three days a week."