The majority of Amazon employees worldwide have returned to the office full-time, but for some who work for the tech giant and online retailer, it’s not a welcome change.
“The people on my team are very upset about this,” said CJ Feeley, a system development engineer at Amazon Web Services, based in Seattle.
Amazon employees have mostly worked remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2023, they have been allowed to work a hybrid schedule — two days remote and three days in the office.
As of January 2, this in-office requirement changed to five days a week.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote In a message to employees In September, the company “will return to working in the office as we did before the emergence of the Corona virus.”
Employees are concerned about the lack of data
“What we’ve been told is that it leads to increased collaboration between teams and innovation,” Feeley said in an interview with CBC News. “But when we ask for data, which is Amazon’s famous bread and butter, they are never willing to provide it.”
Feeley spoke out against this latest mandate to return to the office, along with 523 other Amazon employees who wrote a letter to Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Jarman, saying they were “appalled” by the “non-data-driven system” of the five-day mandate in The office expressed the benefits of remote work in the letter.
Feeley believes employees are happier and more productive when working from home and wants to maintain that flexibility.
“I do most of my focused work at home, and I find that breaking the monotony helps me personally,” he said.
What do the workers want?
About 18.7 per cent of working Canadians worked mostly from home as of May 2024, according to Statistics Canada. That’s about six percent lower than in May 2021, but still more than twice higher than before the pandemic.
A flexible workplace is a big draw for workers, according to A Workplace trends report From global recruitment agency Robert Half.
About 40% of employees surveyed said they prefer hybrid work, spending two to three days a week in the office. Employers surveyed said they would prefer their teams to be in the office four days a week.
“This dance between employee and employer suggests we are still on a journey to perfect this mix,” said David King, senior managing director at Robert Half in Toronto.
The online survey, conducted in June 2024, included responses from 1,800 hiring managers and more than 1,750 workers in finance, accounting, technology, marketing, legal and administrative support, customer support and human resources in Canada.
Hybrid working remains a priority for some companies – 37% of managers surveyed offer hybrid positions specifically to attract skilled talent.
According to job listing site Indeed, the percentage of job postings in Canada mentioning remote/hybrid work has remained steady over the past two years.
“There is an advantage to anything that allows your workforce to fully participate,” King said. “Today that seems to be a form of hybrid.”
Workplace tug of war
Amazon is one of the biggest companies to return to fully in-person work, but there are others taking similar steps.
In September, Dell asked its global sales team to come into the office five days a week in order to deliver “the best innovation, value and service” to their customers, according to a statement emailed to CBC News.
AT&T started the new year by eliminating hybrid work, requiring employees to work on-site.
Employees of Calgary fintech Gigadat have returned to their offices five days a week for several years.
“We were probably one of the first companies to bring employees back,” said Cliff Newning, Gigadate’s chief operating officer, explaining that the main motivators were improving employee mental health and increasing productivity.
“Being able to have a spontaneous meeting adds a lot of value,” he said.
During the beginning of the pandemic, Gigadat’s 100-plus employees were allowed to work remotely and then hybrid, but the company quickly returned to fully in-person work.
“Even when you have someone working from home, they’re disconnected from that conversation when you’re all over the boardroom, that face-to-face encounter is so important,” Newening said.
Although he admits that having everyone back was not an easy decision, he wonders if they lost some staff as a result.
The challenges ahead for Amazon
But he is glad his company took this step early and can see the challenge that lies ahead for Amazon.
“The longer this hybrid-remote experience goes on, the harder it will be to get back to somewhat of a normal in-office experience,” Newening said.
Feely, the Amazon employee, still believes the future is mixed and hopes his employer will reverse course.
“Our whole bread and butter is selling products to people remotely and selling products to people who want to work remotely. So, if we can’t work remotely, what do we sell?” Fili wondered.
“It’s kind of an incentive that encourages me to leave.”
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