CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a memo on Monday that Amazon is directing corporate employees to work in the office five days a week.
The move signals a significant change from Amazon’s previous return-to-work policy, which mandated corporate employees to be in the office for a minimum of three days per week. Now, the company is giving employees until Jan. 2 to begin following the new policies.
Jassy said in a message shared with employees that the company’s leadership had been thinking in recent months about how to better “invent, collaborate and be connected enough to each other” to deliver the best results for customers and the business.
The company decided that bringing employees back into Amazon offices five days a week instead of the three currently required was a way to address that issue, the CEO said.
“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 wrote in the memo, which Amazon also shared on its website. The policy takes effect on January 2, 2025.
“Before the pandemic, it was not a given that folks could work remotely two days a week, and that will also be true moving forward — we expect that people will be in the office outside of extenuating circumstances,” Jassy said.
In February 2023, Amazon asked all employees to come back to the office for three mandatory days, resulting in some protests from workers.
A few months later, Jassy said employees who were not happy about the change should learn to disagree and commit” He also issued somewhat of a subtle threat, saying it was “probably not going to work out” for those who refused to do so.
In his note on Monday, Jassy said the company has observed that it is easier for employees to “learn, model, practice and strengthen” Amazon’s culture and brainstorm when they’re together in person.
“If anything, the last 15 months we’ve been back in the office at least three days a week has strengthened our conviction about the benefits,” he said.
