It’s back to the office full-time for the majority of Amazon employees around the world, but for some who work for the tech giant and online retailer, it’s not a welcome change.
“My team members are very upset about this situation,” said CJ Felli, a systems development engineer at Amazon Web Services based in Seattle.
Amazon employees have been working primarily remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2023, they have been allowed to work a hybrid schedule: two days remotely and three days in the office.
Since January 2, this office attendance requirement has increased to five days per week.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a letter to employees in September, that the company “is going to return to the office as we were before COVID appeared.”
Employees worried about lack of data
“What we’ve been told is that it leads to increased collaboration between teams and innovation,” Felli said in an interview with CBC News. “But every time we ask for data, which is Amazon’s livelihood, they are never willing to provide it.”
Felli spoke out against this latest mandate back to power, alongside 523 other Amazon employees who wrote a letter to Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman, saying they were “dismayed” by the “unmanaged by data. explanation” for a five-day office term and expressed the benefits of remote work in the letter.
Felli believes employees are happier and more productive working from home and wants to maintain that flexibility.
“I do most of my focused work at home and I find that breaking up the monotony really helps me personally,” he said.
What workers want
About 18.7 percent of employed Canadians worked primarily from home in May 2024, according to Statistics Canada. That’s about 6% lower than in May 2021, but still more than twice as high as before the pandemic.
A flexible workplace is a big draw for workers, says a workplace trends report from global recruitment agency Robert Half.
About 40 percent of employees surveyed said they preferred 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 that we are still perfecting this combination,” 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 and accounting, technology, marketing, legal, administration, customer support and human resources in Canada.
Hybrid working remains a priority for some companies: 37% of managers surveyed offer hybrid jobs specifically to attract qualified talent.
According to job posting website Indeed, the percentage of job postings in Canada mentioning remote/hybrid work has remained stable over the past two years.
“There’s an advantage to anything that allows your staff to be fully engaged. And today that seems to be some form of hybrid,” King said.
Tug of war in the workplace
Amazon is one of the biggest companies returning to fully in-person work, but others are taking similar steps.
In September, Dell asked its global sales team to come into the office five days a week to provide “the best innovation, value and service” to its customers, according to a statement emailed to CBC News.
AT&T kicked off the new year by eliminating hybrid work, requiring staff to work onsite.
Staff at Calgary fintech Gigadat have been back in the office five days a week for several years.
“We were probably one of the first companies to bring people back,” said Cliff Nywening, Gigadat’s chief operating officer, explaining that the main motivations were improving employee mental health and increasing productivity.
“Being able to have a spontaneous meeting adds a lot of value,” he said.
At the start of the pandemic, Gigadat’s team of more than 100 people was allowed to work remotely and then in hybrid mode, but the company quickly returned to fully in-person work.
“Even when someone is working from home, they’re disconnected from that conversation when you’re in the conference room,” Nywening said, “that face-to-face is so important.”
He admits, however, that bringing everyone back wasn’t an easy decision and wonders if they lost some employees as a result.
The challenges ahead for Amazon
But he’s glad his company acted early and could see the challenge ahead of Amazon.
“The longer you’ve been in this hybrid remote experience, the harder it’s going to be to go back to, you know, a somewhat normal in-office work experience,” Nywening said.
Felli, the Amazon employee, still believes the future is hybrid and he hopes his employer reverses course.
“Our core business is selling products to remote people and people who want to work remotely. So if we can’t do remote work, then what are we selling?” Felli asked.
“It’s kind of the catalyst to encourage me to leave.”
