CBS NEWS
Amazon wants to set its corporate clock back to before the pandemic. After four years of employees with the online retailer working from home, CEO Andrew Jassy said on Monday he wants all workers back in the office five days a week.
To foster a culture of collaboration, “we’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID,” Jassy said in a memo to employees posted on Amazon’s website. “When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant.”
Jassy also said teams function better when people work together in person, while the company’s corporate culture is strengthened. The new mandate goes into effect Jan. 2, 2025.
In February 2023, Amazon asked all employees to come back to the office for three mandatory days, resulting in some protests from workers.
Jassy acknowledged that before the pandemic, when full-time in-office work was the norm, remote work exceptions were made for employees who had extenuating circumstances. Such leniency will continue.
“If you or your child were sick, if you had some sort of house emergency, if you were on the road seeing customers or partners, if you needed a day or two to finish coding in a more isolated environment, people worked remotely,” he wrote in the memo.
