* **Employee Dissatisfaction**: Amazon employees are highly dissatisfied with the new five-day return-to-office (RTO) mandate, with an average satisfaction rating of 1.4 out of 5.
* **Survey Results**: An anonymous survey shared among Amazon employees highlights concerns about reduced productivity, negative impacts on work-life balance, and distrust in leadership.
* **Leadership’s Stance**: CEO Andy Jassy insists that in-office work fosters better collaboration, culture, and learning, despite employee pushback.
* **Potential Consequences**: Employees fear the mandate will drive away top talent and create challenges for those with complex schedules or caregiving responsibilities.
Next-Last-Next on
How “Anonymous” are these surveys really in large companies like Amazon?
orangejuicecake on
tech worker strike incoming?
mcs5280 on
This is the point. It’s designed to reduce headcount without having to pay out severance. I guarantee some HR drone came up with a projection of what % of their workforce will resign as a result and the executives loved it.
DingleBerrieIcecream on
Why not use the carrot instead of the stick? Offer $5k bonus yearly for anyone that works in the office an average of 4 days a week and $10k for anyone averaging 5 days a week. Incentives do wonders to change perception and it still gives people the choice that they want. Could even be a sliding scale based on each person’s salary.
tomthedog on
Amazon will absolutely let employees above a certain pay level stay home. This is a rule for the peons. Amazon’s just not that into you.
Shadow293 on
I’ve been stuck in office this whole time while having to help other people transition to work from home, while not being allowed to do the same myself. Still, it is very shitty for employers to try and force people to come back to office just so they can sit there and do the same exact shit they did perfectly fine from home.
newsreadhjw on
Do these people not understand where they work? Why would they think their opinion matters here?
Unionize and strike, or GTFO. Those are the remaining options. Slack surveys are not going to accomplish anything.
Appropriate_Wear7663 on
Naive amazon employees misunderstood or pretend they did. They are not freelancers! They are employees! And the employer must always have leverage over you. That means being able to walk to your office, see you working and guide you however he likes. Make you do the chores or attend boring meetings over and over again. Make you come to every single pizza party. LEVERAGE is the word you are missing when you WFH.
jen1980 on
I’m so looking forward to this, because I want a job at Amazon. I’ve almost got one several times, but I was competing with too many people for too few positions. Hopefully Feb or so, I will have a chance when people start quitting, like three of my friends claim they will. $400k total compensation hopefully.
Not bad for someone that was making minimum wage when I joined reddit. Some of the tech subs here have helped me so much.
E4ttheR1ch99 on
Ain’t a damn thing at Amazon is anonymous.
jasazick on
Here is how this is going to play out. It’s a trainwreck that most of us can see coming a mile away:
* Top talent will straight up leave. They will be able to get jobs elsewhere.
* Reliable employees will start to slowly look for jobs. It won’t be immediate – but when they do find work, even if it means a salary reduction, they will leave. Look for this to take 2 to 3 years. During this timeframe, they will not be nearly as engaged and their overall productivity will nosedive. They won’t work extra hours. They won’t “go the extra mile”. And the certainly won’t be good mentors for newer employees.
* Smaller companies and startups will continue to be able to poach Amazon employees. They will offer lower salaries but temper it with full time WFH. Many of these companies will be competing directly with various Amazon services/products.
* Unreliable employees will continue to be unreliable. But now they are unreliable AND they are grouchy at having to commute into the office. So… even more unreliable.
* New employees will either be trained by formerly reliable employees who no longer care OR by unreliable employees who never cared in the first place.
There is no scenario where Amazon is better off in 3 years. People can try to spin this as “Amazon is laying people off without laying people off” but it is way past that at this point. The people they are going to lose are NOT the people they want to lose.
Deep-Ad2155 on
It’s a clever ploy on the company’s part, sad thing is it may actually work and keep people there as tech hiring isn’t amazing right now.
Soft-Lock-2207 on
Layoffs were rare when I first started working about 30 years ago. Now they happen 1-4 times a year. Of course they want to get rid of severance lay offs. It’s costs them some money and they don’t feel it should. They should make layoffs illegal for corporations that don’t pay appropriate taxes. The government is t going to get their cut of money
GYN-k4H-Q3z-75B on
That is the point. Have people quit or refuse to comply which means you can fire them. The problem is you will lose many of the good ones. But C-level does not care.
Dreaminginslowmotion on
I’ve had to recruit for Amazon competitors the last few years seeking high level engineers and researchers. At the level Amazon WANTS them to be at, with the skill levels from years and years of experience, you cater to their need to get them onboard. The fool’s errand is expecting to find all of them (and Amazon needs much more than a handful) in San Francisco or Seattle or expecting them to relocate to a branch. It just. won’t. work.
For a CEO to demand they ALL work in branches, no exceptions, is pure stupidity and ignorance of the job market.
Me, I’ll hire those people into my company that DOES pay similar comp ranges and are remote so the engineer doesn’t need to uproot their kid from high school or move from Colorado or Georgia. And, there will be dozens of other companies just like me, chomping at the bit to hire that high tier Amazon worker looking to leave.
Stupidity.
areyouentirelysure on
Quit then. It is a free labor market.
cjboffoli on
Seems like a great, low key way to lay off a bunch of employees.
smurfseverywhere on
Ive said this before and got downvoted to hell – but ill do it again
This is good. Fuck amazon. They dont deserve the best people.
k_dubious on
I worked in tech throughout the 2010s. Everyone always took the occasional WFH day and nobody gave a shit.
Forcing people to come to the office every single workday has never been the standard in this industry, so I’m not surprised people hate it.
NebulousNitrate on
The logical thing to do if Amazon execs believe it’s related to poor employee performance, is to update the metrics/bar used to measure productivity and fire those that aren’t meeting it. It’ll drive a more productive workforce while allowing them to stay remote. They’re going to lose much more top talent by asking employees back into the offices.
22 Comments
AI Summary:
* **Employee Dissatisfaction**: Amazon employees are highly dissatisfied with the new five-day return-to-office (RTO) mandate, with an average satisfaction rating of 1.4 out of 5.
* **Survey Results**: An anonymous survey shared among Amazon employees highlights concerns about reduced productivity, negative impacts on work-life balance, and distrust in leadership.
* **Leadership’s Stance**: CEO Andy Jassy insists that in-office work fosters better collaboration, culture, and learning, despite employee pushback.
* **Potential Consequences**: Employees fear the mandate will drive away top talent and create challenges for those with complex schedules or caregiving responsibilities.
How “Anonymous” are these surveys really in large companies like Amazon?
tech worker strike incoming?
This is the point. It’s designed to reduce headcount without having to pay out severance. I guarantee some HR drone came up with a projection of what % of their workforce will resign as a result and the executives loved it.
Why not use the carrot instead of the stick? Offer $5k bonus yearly for anyone that works in the office an average of 4 days a week and $10k for anyone averaging 5 days a week. Incentives do wonders to change perception and it still gives people the choice that they want. Could even be a sliding scale based on each person’s salary.
Amazon will absolutely let employees above a certain pay level stay home. This is a rule for the peons. Amazon’s just not that into you.
I’ve been stuck in office this whole time while having to help other people transition to work from home, while not being allowed to do the same myself. Still, it is very shitty for employers to try and force people to come back to office just so they can sit there and do the same exact shit they did perfectly fine from home.
Do these people not understand where they work? Why would they think their opinion matters here?
Unionize and strike, or GTFO. Those are the remaining options. Slack surveys are not going to accomplish anything.
Naive amazon employees misunderstood or pretend they did. They are not freelancers! They are employees! And the employer must always have leverage over you. That means being able to walk to your office, see you working and guide you however he likes. Make you do the chores or attend boring meetings over and over again. Make you come to every single pizza party. LEVERAGE is the word you are missing when you WFH.
I’m so looking forward to this, because I want a job at Amazon. I’ve almost got one several times, but I was competing with too many people for too few positions. Hopefully Feb or so, I will have a chance when people start quitting, like three of my friends claim they will. $400k total compensation hopefully.
Not bad for someone that was making minimum wage when I joined reddit. Some of the tech subs here have helped me so much.
Ain’t a damn thing at Amazon is anonymous.
Here is how this is going to play out. It’s a trainwreck that most of us can see coming a mile away:
* Top talent will straight up leave. They will be able to get jobs elsewhere.
* Reliable employees will start to slowly look for jobs. It won’t be immediate – but when they do find work, even if it means a salary reduction, they will leave. Look for this to take 2 to 3 years. During this timeframe, they will not be nearly as engaged and their overall productivity will nosedive. They won’t work extra hours. They won’t “go the extra mile”. And the certainly won’t be good mentors for newer employees.
* Smaller companies and startups will continue to be able to poach Amazon employees. They will offer lower salaries but temper it with full time WFH. Many of these companies will be competing directly with various Amazon services/products.
* Unreliable employees will continue to be unreliable. But now they are unreliable AND they are grouchy at having to commute into the office. So… even more unreliable.
* New employees will either be trained by formerly reliable employees who no longer care OR by unreliable employees who never cared in the first place.
There is no scenario where Amazon is better off in 3 years. People can try to spin this as “Amazon is laying people off without laying people off” but it is way past that at this point. The people they are going to lose are NOT the people they want to lose.
It’s a clever ploy on the company’s part, sad thing is it may actually work and keep people there as tech hiring isn’t amazing right now.
Layoffs were rare when I first started working about 30 years ago. Now they happen 1-4 times a year. Of course they want to get rid of severance lay offs. It’s costs them some money and they don’t feel it should. They should make layoffs illegal for corporations that don’t pay appropriate taxes. The government is t going to get their cut of money
That is the point. Have people quit or refuse to comply which means you can fire them. The problem is you will lose many of the good ones. But C-level does not care.
I’ve had to recruit for Amazon competitors the last few years seeking high level engineers and researchers. At the level Amazon WANTS them to be at, with the skill levels from years and years of experience, you cater to their need to get them onboard. The fool’s errand is expecting to find all of them (and Amazon needs much more than a handful) in San Francisco or Seattle or expecting them to relocate to a branch. It just. won’t. work.
For a CEO to demand they ALL work in branches, no exceptions, is pure stupidity and ignorance of the job market.
Me, I’ll hire those people into my company that DOES pay similar comp ranges and are remote so the engineer doesn’t need to uproot their kid from high school or move from Colorado or Georgia. And, there will be dozens of other companies just like me, chomping at the bit to hire that high tier Amazon worker looking to leave.
Stupidity.
Quit then. It is a free labor market.
Seems like a great, low key way to lay off a bunch of employees.
Ive said this before and got downvoted to hell – but ill do it again
This is good. Fuck amazon. They dont deserve the best people.
I worked in tech throughout the 2010s. Everyone always took the occasional WFH day and nobody gave a shit.
Forcing people to come to the office every single workday has never been the standard in this industry, so I’m not surprised people hate it.
The logical thing to do if Amazon execs believe it’s related to poor employee performance, is to update the metrics/bar used to measure productivity and fire those that aren’t meeting it. It’ll drive a more productive workforce while allowing them to stay remote. They’re going to lose much more top talent by asking employees back into the offices.
Amazon doesn’t care about people, period