Amazon leads charge on return to office with new 5-day policy

Amazon has announced it will return to a five-day, in-office work week, marking a return to the pre-pandemic way of working. Will other companies follow the new change in policy? And how are employees feeling about it? NBC’s Dana Griffin reports in this week’s Sunday Focus.

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#amazon #office #employer

[jaredmotopnw]

Control. That’s all it is. And they know it.

Or? They want them to quit so they don’t have to pay them unemployment.

[happyeggroll]

2hr of life wasted every day to prep, go-to, lunch, go-back home. Never again.

[MrMuis]

This is just a quiet layoff by Amazon ... nothing to see here

[unionash]

Calling out the bull💩 on brainstorming and culture - I’m in the office and I’m glued to my computer and barely get a moment to chat with my colleagues- besides we have Teams and Zoom so I could still brainstorm and collaborate remotely…at this point it’s either micromanagement or tax purposes of being in the office for a required # of days per year

[housevinyl]

Any chance Amazon is going to be refinancing their office buildings? Low occupancy reduces the buildings value. This smells like a plan to get a better refinancing deal. Or maybe it’s a plan to get people to quit so they don’t need lay-off and pay severance. Workers are just pawns.

[RachelMullerCreations]

I am part of a call center. I hated being in the office. One thing the lights were always were super bright even though the whole building had wall to wall windows. You knew when winter came you would be getting sick with the cold or the flu. You could hear a few people coughing and sneezing on the other side of the floor. Plus there were a lot of people that never washed their hands after going to the bathroom. At least when you worked from home you can control your environment. I think since I have been working remotely since 2020, my migraines have gone way down and I haven't gotten super sick, except when I got covid last October. In the office, I always ended up with sinus infections.

[YTLawnGnome]

I am sorry, you don't come to work to socialize. Your co-workers are not your friends. You go to work to do your work.

[TNTkeynine]

It’s a tactic to have workers quit or fire them. That way they don’t have to pay severance. Why do you think this doesn’t apply to top executives?

[Scott_T_]

It's 2024 not 1984, I'm not returning back to the office. They can go ahead and fire me and I'll take the unemployment. I'm sure the CEO won't be in the office 5 days per week. More C-level do as I say, not as I do.

[MACKandJER]

They want people to quit over being fired. It's a classic move.

[asafmn]

Amazon's new back-to-office mandate might be backfiring big time. They're potentially:

1. Cutting their talent pool by a ton
2. Ticking off their employees
3. Actually hurting productivity
4. Trying to justify expensive office space

The whole thing feels kinda out of touch with how work has changed. Instead of one-size-fits-all rules, they'd probably do better focusing on what works for each person. It'll be interesting to see if this move comes back to bite them.

[monicarenee]

I work in the technology field and my entire team is in a different state or country except for 2 people. We spend all our time in the office on Teams calls because we can’t leave out the rest of the team. Unless they force us all to work from the same office I don’t really get the point of 5x a week work for my specific job. Hoping companies don’t make this one size fits all.

[sabrina.natalie]

In about 18 months, more companies will follow suit.

[pratham]

Amazon wants to layoff, this is easier way to force them to quit

[JAM_]

So many distractions working in the office.

[divinelyindifferent]

Let them. Many of their top talent who are parents are already eyeing new opportunities. A company without top talent is a dead company, and Amazon’s talent is becoming increasingly disenchanted. On top of that, many of the new college grads are seeing the layoffs are are opting to work at small-businesses (a major employer in America) where they can make their impact instead. I think it’s great what Amazon is doing because it will begin to limit their access to top “Human Resources.” It’s not just Amazon, all of these big companies are about to be humbled. The economy really is on life support.

[louismat]

Im protesting this by not buying from amazon

[lawrencehodge]

What this is really about: they’re sitting in millions of dollars in empty office real estate and they want people utilizing it. It’s all about money. And they’re going to cost themselves a bunch of talent by doing this. They already hd a terrible worker rep in tech. This is just going to make it worse.

[HappyHappy-sqij]

This isn’t as broad as they’re making it sound. Some roles always have been (and will be) remote.

[dtxgmoney]

They report employees as "going back to work" as if we haven't been working since the beginning of the pandemic. Just because it's remote, doesn't mean we're not working. In fact, many studies have shown employees work harder and deliver more productivity in a remote setting.