Amazon (AMZN) employees have had it with the upcoming change to a controversial work policy. The change is haunting their future at the company, and they are starting to fight back.
In September, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy shocked the business world by revealing that the company will require a full-time return to office five days a week, starting next year. For most of the last two years, the company offered a hybrid model for many employees, requiring them to work in the office only three days a week.
After the announcement, many Amazon employees were reportedly looking for the nearest exit door.
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A survey from anonymous job review site Blind, which was conducted days after Jassy’s announcement, revealed that about 91% of the thousands of Amazon employees it polled said they were unhappy with the company’s decision to require working in the office five days a week. 73% said they were considering searching for another job due to the new policy.
Related: Amazon’s new return-to-office mandate is starting to backfire
The survey results were a contradiction of Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman’s recent comments during an internal meeting a week ago where he stated that nine out of 10 Amazon employees told him they were “excited” about the new mandate.
He also said that there were days when employees “didn’t really accomplish anything” due to remote work and encouraged those who didn’t agree with the new mandate to find another job.
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Amazon employees reject Garman’s recent comments
Now, it appears that Garman’s comments at the meeting sparked an uproar amongst a large group of employees. About 500 Amazon corporate employees recently sent a letter to Garman claiming that his comments during the meeting were “inconsistent with the experiences of many employees.” The letter was obtained by Business Insider,
“By making these statements, you are continuing and compounding a trend by Amazon’s S-team of misrepresenting the realities of working at Amazon and the impact this mandate will have on the company and, by extension, its customers. Amazon claims to be a data-driven company, and statements which rely on ‘we believe’ and ‘I feel,’ or exclaim how many people are excited about something to justify themselves fail to achieve our standard of decision making for critical issues that impact hundreds of thousands of the company’s employees and its customers.”
In the letter, the employees also claimed that mandating staff to work from the office five days a week is “damaging” to the company’s work culture.
Related: Amazon confirms fears about future of remote work with latest move
“By rigidly mandating a 5-day in-office culture and telling employees who cannot or will not contribute to the company’s mission in this specific way that ‘there are other companies around,’ you are silencing critical perspectives and damaging our culture and our future in doing so. Moreover, this does not uphold Amazon’s espoused ‘Strive to be Earth’s Best Employer’ leadership principle, especially for select and protected groups who have sought a safer, more inclusive, and healthier work environment and are disproportionately impacted by these policies. These groups include but are not limited to working parents (especially those with young children), employees who are neurodiverse or have disabilities or disorders, workers with caretaking responsibilities, and workers on a visa who have no choice but to comply or risk having to leave their home by quitting.”
They also stated that the new return-to-office mandate will hinder the company’s ability to innovate instead of helping it.
“We worry that when customers see us encounter a true challenge and refuse to solve problems that stand in the way of embracing it, they will rightly lose trust in AWS’ ability to innovate. For these reasons we urge you to reconsider your comments and your position on the proposed 5-day in-office mandate. Remote and flexible work is an opportunity for Amazon to take the lead, not a threat. We want to work for a company and for leaders that recognize and seize this moment to challenge us to reinvent how we work.”
You can read the full letter here.
An Amazon office building in Virginia.
Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Employers are losing talent to competitors who offer flexible work options
Many employees across the country appear to have a large preference for hybrid/remote work, citing benefits such as improved work satisfaction, boosts in productivity and financial savings.
These benefits appear to be non-negotiable as employers across the country are struggling with maintaining talent due to having a lack of remote work options.
According to a recent report from Remote.com, within the last six months, 67% of U.S. employers have lost their talent force to competitors who are offering employees more flexible work arrangements, such as hybrid and fully remote work.
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