Amazon ends 'era' of remote work

Reception hall of Amazon's office in New York - Photo: SHUTTERSTOCK

The rule was announced in an internal memo sent to all employees by CEO Andy Jassy on September 16 and will take effect from January 2, 2025. It quickly sparked a wave of controversy, with one side promoting face-to-face meetings to increase productivity and the other prioritizing flexibility and work-life balance.

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Amazon employees now work a hybrid schedule of three days in the office and two days from home each week, starting in early 2023, replacing the remote work schedule during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mr. Jassy shared about the new decision: "Looking back over the past 5 years, we can believe that the benefits of working together are huge. We see that it helps colleagues to easily learn, lead by example, practice and strengthen the company culture. Collaboration, ideation and invention are also simpler and more effective. Mutual learning takes place smoothly, while the ability to connect between groups is enhanced."

The New York Times, citing an Amazon insider, confirmed that attendance will be done by swiping employee badges. All employees must come to the office even if most of their team members work in other offices. Amazon will invest in building more conference rooms and about 3,500 phone booths to serve the needs of employees.

With this decision, Amazon has become the first leading technology corporation in the world to completely abandon remote work or hybrid work. Other technology giants such as Google, Meta... are still maintaining the rule of working in the office only three days a week and show no signs of changing.

More broadly, however, the return-to-office wave has been quietly spreading across most industries in the US for the past two years. In mid-December 2023, Boeing’s commercial aircraft business issued a rule to come to work five days a week, starting after the Christmas holiday. By February 2024, the multinational package delivery service UPS also required employees to come to the office all week.

Even Zoom — the video conferencing app and icon of remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic — has asked employees to come into the office.

Some other famous businesses that have abandoned remote working include entertainment giant Disney, leading financial group Goldman Sachs, leading investment bank Bank of America... In their announcements requesting to return to work, most companies made similar arguments to Mr. Jassy's recent announcement.

The End of Remote Work: Employee Grievances

While favored by business leaders, the requirement to work full-time in the office has been criticized by most employees. After nearly four years of remote work, many have built their personal lives around this form of work, so having to go into the office to work will certainly cause quite a bit of disruption to their lives.

Immediately after Mr. Jassy's announcement, Amazon's news channels were flooded with mixed reactions.

Tamia Reed, a data center engineer at Amazon Web Services, shared on social media: "For many of us, working remotely is not just a convenience but also a necessity for a more flexible and balanced work life.

This abrupt change runs counter to our efforts to respect diverse work styles and accommodate different individual needs. I hope Amazon will reconsider and find a way to support both business needs and the diverse work preferences of its employees."

Professor Prithwiraj Choudhury of Harvard Business School (Harvard University) asserts that decisions like Amazon's will certainly have consequences. He points out that when a company abandons flexible working policies, it often loses top talent or misses out on potential employees or candidates. Mr. Choudhury commented: "This is a step back in time, it is regressive leadership."

Some analysts even believe that Amazon and other companies are actually looking to cut staff. They know the risk of losing people if they force employees to come into the office all week, but they will still pursue this policy to secretly force workers to quit.

Mixed working does not affect productivity

Flex Index data shows that in Q3 2024, 33% of US companies required employees to come into the office all week. In the technology sector, 79% of companies maintained flexible work policies, while only 3% of businesses required employees to come into the office full time.

Meanwhile, a recent study in the journal Nature found that working three days at the office and two days at home did not affect employee productivity. "Hybrid work is a compromise between productivity, performance, and employee retention," said Nicholas Bloom, a professor at Stanford University and one of the study's participants.

Source: https://tuoitre.vn/amazon-cham-dut-ky-nguyen-lam-viec-tu-xa-20240918223110311.htm