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Amazon is warning employees they risk undermining their own promotion prospects unless they return to the office (RTO) for three days a week, as was mandated by CEO Andy Jassy months ago
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- Title
- Amazon: Not coming into offce limits promotion prospects
- Published
- Nov 15 2023
- Word count
- 474 words
Huh, an Audible recruiter just reached out to me about going through the interview process. Thanks for saving me some frantic studying time over the holiday! I might still go through with the process just to get some reps in tho lol
I've been reading on Blind that Amazon is having difficulty recruiting people since they churn through so many people and give bad experiences. Dunno how true that is but I guess they might also just have too many people? Only reason I can think of being so hostile to their employees.
Amazon is very hostile to their employees. They still do stack ranking. They pay an absolute boatload of money for sure, but almost everyone I've seen has either really lucked out and gotten a fantastic manager that they loved (the minority) or has burned out in about a year from overwork, stress, and manager bullying.
Yeah, so I've heard. I hope Audible might be a bit different since they were aquired, but I doubt it. Either way though at least I'm gonna go as far as I can just to get the interview experience in, it's been a while and it's still kinda fun to me lol
I had a friend who interviews for fun. He has done very well for himself. So, not a bad idea.
I wish I had the energy to even apply to other jobs. I'm over here trying to think about how to strong-arm my manager into promoting me to senior just for the title, when I really just want a new job. But by the end of the day, I'm so exhausted from carrying the team that I just want to pour a glass of wine and veg the hell out. My coworkers are great people, but no one takes responsibility or thoroughly learns our messed up systems, so I'm the one that just "knows" how everything functions, and it takes so much out of me.
Yeah, I am the opposite of my friend, I haaateeee job hunting. Let alone doing interviews for fun š
lol I actually enjoy the process, especially since my job used to be a bit more relaxed, it was always a good way to kinda get a pulse on how the industry is doing. Recently I had a bunch of work dumped on me though, haven't been able to do it as much, hopefully after the holidays.
Anecdotally it's a nice way to figure out how your general niche is doing. I'm a mobile engineer, so my LinkedIn is usually pinged at least once a week, when the companies weren't doing so hot, that number dropped to 0, but now it's starting to go up again.
I worked for a company that was acquired by Amazon. The overwork, stress and bullying ramped up after about a year.
It's the same. Once Amazon acquires a company, it either shuts it down or absorbs it into the Collective. AWS is the same way now.
Personally I don't see the appeal when you can make a slightly smaller boatload of money and work at Google.
FAANG isn't for me but if you're down to work for Amazon you're probably considering Google as well.
The hiring bar for Amazon is quite a bit lower than Google.
That's probably because they need more fresh meat.
Small to midsize companies must be loving the high quality talent thatās being freed up by the megacorpsā push to RTO. Wouldnāt be surprised if thereās significant brain drain occurring, the fruits of which weāll see in a few years.
It truly is odd how much these companies are obsessing over return to office, despite how counterproductive it is. Really, I think the primary benefit is to people who have a very unhealthy relationship with work and often some deep foundational psychological issues.
Remote workers are on average more productive, happier, healthier, and wealthier. The environmental benefits of eliminating commuting are myriad, and traffic is reduced. There are very few reasons not to move every job we can to remote work.
Do some people just perform better in office? Sure. But some people also perform better remotely. In fact, overall it seems people are much more productive, on average. Does it suck to be one of those extroverts that really needs that in-person time? Sure. But if the introverts could adapt to the office, the extroverts can adapt to remote work. So even though it is unprofitable, why do executives still obsess over the office?
Really, I think this is largely driven by the preferences of upper management and executives. The people running big companies generally do not have healthy relationships with work. For them, work is their main hobby and main form of socialization. Executives love work, as they don't spend most of their day sitting in front of a screen actually doing nose-to-the-grindstone work the rest of us do. They're mostly professional schmoozers. They're paid big bucks to represent the company, go golfing with potential clients, wander around the building looking impressive, having 2 hour lunches with drinks on the company's dime, etc. The people at the upper levels of these companies have a really sweet gig. They get to just hang out and schmooze all day. They'll claim they work 60+ hours a week, but that includes time spent on the golf course. Their experience of "work" is simply very fundamentally different from anyone else at the company. To them, work is one big party.
Add to this that for many of them, work feeds some deep sociopathic need for control over others. A normal, well-adjusted human being, once they have earned enough for a reasonably comfortable retirement, will just immediately retire. For most sane human beings, if I hand them ten million dollars, they'll happily retire immediately and spend the rest of their days hanging out with friends and family, pursuing their hobbies and passions, etc. But some people are just broken inside. I like to say I am wealthier than Bezos or Musk. Why? Because I have something they do not have, will not have, and are fundamentally incapable of having. Enough.
Past a certain net worth, people only continue working for reasons that most sane people would find very odd. They keep working because they simply get a deep pleasure out of empire building and commanding other people. They love the feeling of having immense power over others. They get a sick thrill out of being able to walk into a building and realize that they could upturn the life of everyone there with a single word. Real psychopath power stuff. Others? They have a savior complex. They convince themselves that their company is going to change or save the world, and only they are uniquely qualified to lead it. And finally, let's not ignore sex. Sexual harassment, coercion, and assault do happen. And those at the top are most likely to have the clout and resources to cover it up. When you're at the point where you have millions of dollars, but you keep working anyway, you're probably working for reasons that most sane people would find odd at best or abhorrent at worst.
And all of these motivations simply don't work with the remote office. It's hard to keep yourself busy as a professional schmoozer if there's no one in the office to schmooze with. It's hard to hold two hour paid lunches when everyone is at home. It's hard to get a sick thrill out of lording your power over another human being if you can't look them in the eyes while doing it. It's next to impossible to coerce sex out of your secretary if you never meet in person.
Some people will cite the fact that some companies own expensive commercial real estate, but this is a poor explanation for the odd and unprofitable obsession with return to office. Most companies rent office space; they don't own it. They still have to pay til the end of a lease, but forcing people to come in is just a sunk cost fallacy if the only thing tying you to the office is a commercial lease. Really, the obsession with RTO just seems incredibly counterproductive and absurd. However, it makes sense when you consider the human element. These decisions are by human beings, and those human beings have a kind of "work" that most office workers would find quite bizarre and alien. And that's before you get into the deep pathologies that are rampant among the executive classes.
I think a lot of theories have been proposed to explain the push behind RTO, and I've subscribed to a lot of them over the years as well. I've heard things as mundane as "managers don't trust their employees" to "companies need to justify their commercial real-estate investments" all the way to "every corporation is in bed with the government and gas companies and they need RTO to boost the GDP."
I don't think any of that really explains it fully. After all, if a company was invested in commercial real estate, surely they can see that that market is never fully going to recover, and the smart thing would be to recoup what losses they have rather than artificially and pretty transparently trying to save it.
I think Occam's razor applies here, and the most likely explanation is simply that of organizational inertia. Large organizations want to return to the office because that's what they've always done. The larger an organization is, the more it detests change, and the more it loves the status quo. Getting a widespread change to happen in a big company is next to impossible. Even if you're the CEO, changing something will be met with resistance at every possible turn, and only the most strongly held beliefs by the strongest willed executives have any chance of actually coming to fruition.
With WFH, as much as proponents like to pretend it's a magic wand that solves all problems, it isn't. It can provide a lot of benefits without loss of productivity in many cases, and in some cases maybe even a boost in productivity, but It requires a much different management style from every single echelon. It requires a different type of performance evaluation system, it requires different types of network infrastructure, HR policies, hiring strategies, benefits packages, compensation; the list goes on and on. A massive corporation switching from a primarily in-office operation to a primarily WFH operation is an absolutely gargantuan undertaking that requires fundamentally changing the business, even if the customers don't see it. Companies were willing to do that during the pandemic because they were legally obligated to, and they limped along using their legacy policies with some quick fixes made, but they never actually changed how they did business.
If WFH is so important to some employees that they'll be willing to take significant pay cuts for it, larger companies will either start going under or adapting, but right now, they're not really feeling that pain, so I doubt the status quo changes a whole lot.
While I don't disagree with a lot of what you've said here, I do think you've painted with overly broad strokes. I think you may also need to apply Hanlon's Razor to some of your assertions.
I work in academia (as staff) and I think it offers some counter examples to the assertion that any sane person would retire if offered $10m. There are many academics who, while they absolutely would retire, I belive would eagerly keep teaching or researching at the same time. Just not as often. Their work and their passion/hobby overlap to a large degree. I also think this applies to others outside academia.
I don't disagree with this, however I do disagree with what I think you're implying by your phrasing. Which is that the management type are inherently adversarial towards us "real" workers. (Please correct me if I've misinterpreted you)
The managers/directors I have are absolutely professional shmoozers. They spend all their time talking to people, networking, and building connections. I fully appreciate that they do that, because it is essential to our work and I absolutely do not want to do what they do. They fundamentally operate differently than I do and that's OK.
The friction point is when the manager types don't try to get everyone to work like they work. I'm fortunate enough to have ones that don't, but I know a lot of others aren't so lucky.
I feel like itās not necessarily an adversarial relationship between management and rank-and-file, but if we are all acknowledging that they do less work, why do they make so much more money? We could talk all day about the rapid increase in pay gap between execs and employees since the 1960s, but seriously why. We have decided as a society that the farther away you get from the actual work/people, the more important & valuable you areāexcept it seems more like that was decided for us, but the people who have moved so far away from the rest of us. Because of course if you attain power and influence, youāre going to do things to preserve that status for yourself. We are all just enabling it.
Sorry, this is getting carried away lol. I think schmoozing is an important job, gosh I couldnāt do it. But is it worth millions a year? Billions? Is anything?
Sometimes, yeah. I don't think there's any question that the executive/worker pay gap has ballooned to unreasonable levels, but it's not totally unwarranted for certain executives to make millions in salary. If you negotiate the deal that makes the company $100M, the value you add (talking solely in terms of dollars, here) is just greater than the value added by Alice in IT or Bob in accounting.
And for what it's worth, most executives work - a lot. Yeah, there's some golf in there, but I can't agree with the notion that executives are the farthest away from the "real work."
Re: billions - I am not aware of any instances in which execs are getting billions per year in salary. When you see people with these outrageous net worths, it's always tied to the stock market - if you own 10% of Applesoft and Applesoft is worth $300B, we say you're worth $30B. But you're not getting paid that much and you can't just go and withdraw all that money. It only sort of exists.
Not arguing whether or not it's reasonable for execs to have these net worths, but it's important to all be on the same page for the debate.
Good points, thanks for taking the time.
You bet. You might enjoy the book "the man who broke capitalism" by David gelles. It's an easy read and Gelles explores both the rise of gargantuan executive compensation packages as well as the beginning of policies like intentional downsizing.
Not on managements side, but do manage people, and it's the responsibility... Or, at least, that's supposed to be the justification.
If you're the head of a project, you're responsible for the output. If your team fails to complete the job it's your fault and, unless you've got proof of severe incompetence from a single staff member, it's your ass on the line.
But, you're also spot on with everything else. Because 'management protects management' and the workers are just cogs.
When the topic comes up I ask for an actual, real reason and it usually boils down to ābecauseā. They may throw some fancy jargon on it about team building/productivity or some shit but itās based upon their āfeelingā. Feelings arenāt data. I really cannot understand why people are allowed to work in a way that best suits them with the bang on effect of making people feel better and make the company more money. I lead a team on another continent I have never met and gasp we get way, way, way more done with us all remote. And this has actual, measurable data instead of the managerās āfeelingsā.
Being in the office = socializing. It is not to get actual work done. As a neurodivergent IT worker (we are many!) I have zero reason to socialize with other workers in person. More so with those that I donāt even work with because the stupid concept of an open office every department is just jammed in together.
My mental health with work has been a complete turnaround since WFH. No noise. No food smells. No people being annoying. Not having to wear NC headphones and sunglasses all the time. I require full attention to be paid to the issues I work on and it was near impossible in office. It made me highly irritable and unable to work - I cannot solve massively complicated problems with Jim smacking his lips, Jennyās ungodly amount of perfume, people walking behind me and to the sides, someone yelling across the pit to someone, someone deciding to microwave what the fuck is that smell food.
Iāve tried to explain it to those that donāt get it like kind of like this: imagine you have to solve multiple calculus equations all day with a chainsaw running next to your head. And the longer it takes you to solve the equations and/or your inability to solve correctly the more money the company loses and the worse your performance review is until you have a mental breakdown or are fired for poor performance . You canāt stop people from bringing chainsaws into the office, management requires chainsaws be in the office and many of the workers enjoy having chainsaws in the office. So, you need to spend an insane amount of time and brain power to try to ignore chainsaws for 9 hours every day. A feat that is near impossible for anyone save possibly an arborist. How would a lay person feel after a week of dealing with chainsaws and calculus under an immense pressure to do the calculus correctly and quickly?
Sorry for the babble but this topic just makes me boil over.
To be honest I actually prefer working out of an office, but the office needs to actually be conducive to work and so few of them are. I have a phone screen lined up with Amazon right now and their HQ is a decent distance out into the exurbs. It's accessible by transit, but it would about an hour door-to-door, assuming I don't also have to make a pit-stop for childcare drop-off/pick-up, which would make it an hour and a half door-to-door.
I think RTO is a fine idea, but if they want to actually execute on it they need to actually rethink what an office is and what value it brings. Locate it/them closer to where people actually live. Structure work to make the most of the time by concentrating intense periods of team collaboration followed by intense periods of focused "deep work." In collaboration seasons people can come in more regularly, in work seasons they can be more flexible. Have perks from working in office so there are carrots involved instead of just sticks.
The fact that they're not bothering to think these things through makes it seem like they don't actually believe in RTO as an inherently beneficial thing that's conducive to the health of their teams. It seems like they're just reflexively conservative or are trying to "cargo cult" innovation by forcing people to work in ways that were more familiar to when they started their careers.
You gotta think bigger. The biggest barrier historically speaking to the average person starting their own business has been the cost of real estate.
We're a large company with no RTO push (and consistent messaging that it won't happen, to the point of selling off buildings), and have hired several people from Amazon who have left over their RTO mandates. So it's been good for us!
Are you hiring?
Right now the only req I have is for a college hire. But even so, I value my anonymity and won't state where I work here.
I head up a small startup and boy are we batting waaaaay out of our league with candidates at the moment. I'm so sorry for the folks looking to transition at the moment because it is a tough job market, but we're really feeling the benefits.
I honestly don't know because a lot of small to midsize companies are also pushing RTO 3 days a week, and they don't pay as well.
It shouldn't be a surprise that when you disregard company policies that you don't get promoted.
I agree with that statement even if I disagree with the policy. Then again, in what company in the past 15 years was a promotion ever a better salary increase than just switching jobs? And you can always protest or leave if you really won't agree.
Even so, it's dubious to hire people for full remote positions only to force them to come into the office or get royally screwed by your new policy. That just sounds like bad people management.
It's rare, but it happens. I've been with my Fortune 100 company for 13 years. Started out making $70k as a sysadmin. 13 years and 5 full-grade promotions later (with other merit increases in between), I'm now the senior software architect making $350k, in a pretty low cost of living area. I keep a strong pulse on the industry (partially because I'm involved in hiring, and partially for my own self-interests) and nobody else outside of HCOL areas like NYC and the Bay area are paying that kind of money for my type of technical role.
I've not gotten any promotions, but at my current job, I'm getting regular real raises that aren't just barely keeping up with COL here in the Bay Area. My company also cares about me and have bent over backwards to make sure I can continue to actually do my job and do it well, up to and including the time we had a fire in our building and the company paid to put us up in a dog-friendly hotel for a week until the smoke cleared out of our apartment.
My boss is one of the kindest people you'll ever meet, but takes no bullshit. I guess it helps that he's the director of HR and the VP of the company and has a lot of discretion to take care of the employees as he sees fit. Our company has stunning retention. We're small, but have been around for 20 years, and most employees tenure is 5+ years, several are almost at 15 years.
I'm on the border of Director now (and unsure if I want it), but it's so rare in the UK to actually get those promotion offers unless you're big4/tier1 and really sell your soul for your job.
I'm joining a new firm shortly and whilst it's huge, I've no doubt that if I wanted a directorship then I'd be better off leaving for somewhere else to get it rather than stay put.
My last job change was similar, where I went up within the same company and it changed my salary and role quite a bit. When it constitutes a change in contract and elicits a new salary negotiation, changing jobs within the same company can be a really good thing. I find that it's often just difficult to do within the same company as they become quite stingy with moving skilled people around to new jobs.
Generally speaking, lateral moves are more beneficial when you're jumping ship instead of waiting for an internal promotion. To a point of course. Though I'd posit that has to do more with the job title. In addition to salary you have growth in personal experience that warrants an improvement in job title/responsibility which comes with its own higher salary cap.
So I'm not saying you're wrong, as I literally had it happen to myself within the same company, but I've also had a lot of luck in the past making the leap to another company.
Yup. I was hired as remote (virtual employee in Amazon lingo) during the pandemic.
Saw the writing on the wall that many of the higher-ups wanted people back in the office, and I lived... no where close to one.
Jumped ship for an all-remote startup. Win/win for everyone probably, they get someone willing to commute to the office and I continue to work from anywhere.
I'm a bit confused. Three days a week in the office doesn't seem that bad, and a far better work-health compromise than full time. I think that while workers do deserve time at home, there are benefits to seeing and talking to the people you work with every once in a while. Am I missing something?
The biggest thing for most employees is not having to commute and savings on cost of living. For the commute to be bearable one has to live near the office, which means spending much more of monthly pay on rent. If you live far away to bring down housing costs, youāre then tying up a lot of time, cash, and sanity in transportation, and not having to go in two days a week doesnāt change that equation very much.
For some folks itās a focus issue. Many find modern open floor plan offices terribly distracting to the point of undermining any productivity gained from having face-to-face with colleagues. This could be fixed by returning to cubicles and private offices, but itās unlikely thatāll happen.
I'm in the open office hater group. Sure it's easy to talk to colleagues, but it's too easy. I've considered getting an ADHD medical accomodation because I find it nearly impossible to focus with everyone swarming and chattering around me.
I don't even have a pre-existing ADHD diagnosis (though it runs in the family); it's just impossible to get uninterrupted focus time.
I've worked in two open office planned workspaces. In the first, we were all sardine-canned into this microscopic portable school building that the company had purchased from the school district. It was absolutely miserable for a variety of reasons.
The other, however, was lovely. I chalk that up to the fact that the desks were far enough apart (10-15ft) that you didn't feel cramped and if you wanted some cubicle partitions, they were available and culturally acceptable for you to use. I picked a desk on the far wall on my first day and I usually didn't have anyone within 20 feet of me. It was actually pretty nice.
It varied on a day to day basis, but when I was still working in an office focus was often an issue for me too. Iāve never been diagnosed with ADHD either but it wouldnāt surprise me if I have a mild case that doesnāt make itself evident most of the time but can exacerbated by some factor or another.
I can get laser focused when I'm in the right environment, but it's just so easy to get scrambled by a colleague bumping my chair or asking me a quick question. Noise-cancelling headphones don't make things perfectly silent, and I hate being jump scared by a tap on the shoulder.
Even if I had a do not disturb mode for in-person interaction, upper management is too focused on "collaboration" instead of productive work. Productive work is a mix of collaboration and alone time that's hard for me to get right in-office.
I work for a biotech company full time in seaport in Boston. I also have a second job on the side.
I still can't afford to live within a 30 minute radius of Boston (that radius turns into an hour with traffic)
I now live further out, closer to the woods and trails, which I love, for a lot cheaper. My company is demanding everyone go back to work 3 days a week -- that means each day I have a minimum 2 hour drive into the office. I would live closer if I could, but affordability wise I can't.
Driving in 3 days a week, paying for subsidized parking, paying for the gas I'll waste in traffic, and paying for the extra miles I put on my car, will run me a minimum of 6k a year. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that I'll be spending 4 to 6 hours a day in the car 3 days a week. My salary doesn't allow me to just waste 6k randomly. And since we've all proven that our jobs can be done without being in the office, or going in once or twice every two weeks as has been the norm, it seems ridiculous that I am now expected to spend my own money to go in while not being compensated adequately in return
That's insane, I would have assumed that employees who cannot make it could apply for exceptions or something. But I guess I'm overestimating Amazon.
Hypothetically, do you think that if there was a convenient train line connecting you and your workplace, this would be less of an issue? I was wondering why I have such a different experience, and realized that I live in a place with a lot of trains. Do you think with better public transport, people would be more willing to make the trip? Maybe we can get Amazon to lobby for trains ;)
More trains (and faster trains) would probably help, but I suspect only marginally. In my (admittedly anecdotal) observation, when cities improve their public transportation systems, more wealthy people flock to live thereāeven though they end up making less use of the public transportation system than poorer people doāand so poorer people get pushed out even further and end up with even worse commute times than they had before.
This is not an argument against public transportation, mind you; it has many benefits worth pursuing, probably even at the cost of gentrification. However, if the aim is to make commuting easier to swallow, I don't think it can be the only solution. It needs to be paired with other policies to increase the supply of housing and to help poorer people stay in their communities.
I think if we had functional trains the way the Netherlands does then yes. It should take 30 min by train to get to Boston from where I am, but it commonly takes an hour 20 to hour 30, not counting the 20 to 25 minutes drive to the train.
When I lived abroad I could make a trip of this distance like it was nothing
totally off topic but I also worked in seaport in Boston 2 years ago high five! Fully remote now but I miss the area sometimes, it was fun.
I'm wondering if some people just moved to cheaper COL areas farther away where commuting isn't feasible. Personally I moved states and a return to office mandate would basically be a termination. Not saying it's common, but I've seen my own team scatter to the four winds (including management).
Same thing happened with the company I work for, including myself. Thankfully management decided to abandon the office altogether and become fully remote rather than trying to force everybody to move back and RTO.
I assume you are asking this question in good faith. But, that makes me wonder, haven't you had this discussion with colleagues and other people over the past few years?
Honestly I am just really curious and intend not judgement. My question comes from the fact that it has been a hotly debated topic for a while now and I actually assumed most people are familiar with the arguments for and against.
It is in good faith, as I underestimated how significant commute is for a lot of people. I live in a pretty small country, so even in the worst case scenario people here don't tend to commute that much.
Most people I've talked to were less leaning towards "we never want to go back to the office" and more "there's no reason for us to be there every single day". With that in mind I always considered Amazon's 3 days a week to be a reasonable compromise, and had no idea it was still such a financial burden on commuters.
I live in a small country (Belgium), my commute is 1h one way, when traffic is good. On average it's actually closer to 1h15. So 2 hours and 30 minutes lost (+ stress, pollution, risks of accidents...) per day just to do basically the same thing I do at home.
The official policy is 2/5 days at the office. I'd say it's fine, even though 1 day is IMO enough most weeks. Socialize with the colleagues, get lunch together, work on issues that are more easily solved when everyone is in the same room.
If I were asked to come back into office 3 days/week and lose 8 hours/week on the road I'd be pissed, honestly.
Fair enough, there are other considerations as well, even in small countries. As someone else pointed out below, even in small countries, a commute can easily be around an hour one way. So with three days this then translates to 6 hours under ideal conditions spend just on commuting. In a country with good public transport this might be filled in with some work during the commute, but it's still time spent in transit and rarely is the case.
Moreover, while a 3-day office mandate might seem like a balanced approach if you purely compare it to full time. But, it's still the majority of the workweek. This quickly can diminish some of the benefits of remote work, certainly for productivity focussed roles. Many people find that they are more productive and focused when working from home, especially in environments less conducive to concentration, like open-floor offices.
Not to mention that the comparison is not just between full time in the office or three days in the office, it is between the full range of possibilities.
The preference for remote work isn't just about avoiding the office; it's about creating an optimal work environment tailored to individual needs, which often leads to better job satisfaction and output. While I agree that face-to-face interaction can be valuable, it's also crucial to weigh it against these significant factors that impact daily work life.
I think that this is the kind of thing that you have to experience to really appreciate. It's possible that if I ever get to work fully remote somewhere I'll change my tune very quickly.
For me, the issue is in flexibility and transparency. At my company, we're required to be in the office three days a week. Each team decides which days they go in (except everyone at the HQ office needs to be in on Wednesday). The company put the policy in place because they believe that face-to-face collaboration leads to more successful products.
We'll ignore the fact that during lockdown, the company broke personal records in how quickly we developed new products and how much volume we pushed. And we'll also ignore that we're a global company and that my team regularly interacts with teams across the US and in Europe, so collaboration via both asynchronous communication and video calls is a necessity for us.
My team has decided to be in the office Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Everyone on my team works from home Tuesdays and Fridays, except for one person who loves working in the office and goes in every day (and my manager, who is full-time remote). If I have a day full of meetings on Thursday that are all Zoom calls, it really makes sense for me to save my own time and money and take those calls from home. What difference does it make for me to put on some headphones and talk to a screen if I do it from my home office versus from my cubicle? But, if I do that, I have to go in on Friday. Because I need to be in the office three days a week. You know, so I can collaborate with my coworkers... Who are all working from home, because it's a Friday.
Why can't my company just be transparent and say "look, we need people in the office to justify this real estate we purchased and the renovations we did," rather than hiding behind the facade of "being face-to-face results in better collaboration"? At least then my coworkers and I wouldn't need to speculate about the real reason we're in the office. And if the reason truly is the collaboration, why are they so inflexible on the policy for when it's just incredibly inconvenient every once in a while?
It goes back to what the exemplary post up above says: it's about managers holding some sort of control over the peons.
Because it doesn't justify it, it makes it look justified. So if they could flatly admit it isn't justified, then they wouldn't need to push RTO in the first place.
There are benefits to "face time" even for remote workers. But nothing suggests that you need it weekly.
I have worked remotely since 1997. For my own productivity, I've found it best to spend a week in the office once per quarter. I use that for brainstorming time, hallway discussions, and getting to know my colleagues outside work. And then I go home where I can implement everything we talk about.
This lets me live wherever I want.
Plus, the travel expense usually is $1000-1500, which is far less than they'd spend on the office square footage they'd have to allocate to an employee.
Personally I think it really has to do with the tools the company uses and how the employees adopt them to replace face 2 face communication. I started working the 2 day remote 15 years ago and have since been fully remote. I would never go back to the 2 day office work week as it increase or reduce my performance. I found myself happier at home and enjoyed the freedom and flexibility working from home gave me. Im a consultant and whenever Iām offered an onsite position, I pass; my happiness means more to me. The company Iām with now encourages us to live anywhere in the world because they have given us the tools and have the security so that we are just as successful as those in the office. It has really opened up the way I view where I want to be and also make me more committed to a company that cares about my happiness.
Employees warn Amazon it risks employee retention prospects if it requires Zoom meetings to be done from inside the office.
In other words - "Look how much we pay or office space, it'd be a shame if no one used it!"
At the end of the day, Amazon runs everything. If employees are supposed to return to office and dont, what would you as a boss ?. All these people who are LUCKY to even be able to wfm should appreciate it (most of rest of us can't/unable to) and stop complaining. Honest to goodness. Get a job which has it built in ffs. ššš
Isnāt this exactly what people did if they started working at Amazon during the 100% WFH era?