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Amazon Indicates Employees Can Quit If They Don't Like Its Return-to-Office Mandate 168

AWS CEO Matt Garman has harsh words for remote workers: return to the office or quit. TechCrunch: The Amazon executive recently told employees who don't like the new five-day in-person work policy that, "there are other companies around," presumably companies they can work for remotely, Reuters reported on Thursday. Amazon's top boss, Andy Jassy, told employees last month that there will be a full return-to-office starting in 2025, an increase from three days for roughly the last year.
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Amazon Indicates Employees Can Quit If They Don't Like Its Return-to-Office Mandate

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  • by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @12:05AM (#64873565)
  • Pretty sure... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kenh ( 9056 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @12:27AM (#64873591) Homepage Journal

    Pretty sure employees always had the ability to quit for any reason they like...

    • Re:Pretty sure... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by eneville ( 745111 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @01:21AM (#64873663) Homepage

      Indeed, but this is more quiet firing as working conditions are eroding to the point that you'd rather not be there.

      Easier in US to make people quit than sack them and pay the benefits isn't it?

      • Re:Pretty sure... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @01:49AM (#64873711)

        >"Indeed, but this is more quiet firing as working conditions are eroding to the point that you'd rather not be there."

        You realize you are equating actually going to work as some horrible "working conditions eroding". Sounds a bit extreme. Just a minute ago, it was a given that people would go to work each day. I do. Countless millions do. Boo hoo :)

        >"Easier in US to make people quit than sack them and pay the benefits isn't it?"

        Again, it is not like they are being asked to do something bad, strange, unusual, radical, or unexpected. And while I strongly agree there are people who CAN work productively with little in-person supervision and interaction, and CAN separate personal stuff from work stuff, there are probably tons and tons more who cannot.

        Ultimately, it is Amazon's decision to make, and employees' decision to stay or not, not ours. Could it be they are just using this to weed out some less dedicated people? Maybe.

        • Re:Pretty sure... (Score:5, Interesting)

          by Sique ( 173459 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @04:30AM (#64873869) Homepage

          [...] it is not like they are being asked to do something bad, strange, unusual, radical, or unexpected.

          Disclaimer: I don't work for Amazon, but for another company with a Return-to-Office policy. But in my case, the company does aks for something strange, unusual, radical and unexpected. In the last five years, but especially during the Corona pandemic, the company was systematically closing down sites. Now, the nearest site to my home is 300 miles away. The company now is asking me to travel 600 miles a day or pay for four accommodations per week close to their office. And to add insult to injury, I work with an international team, and none of my coworkers will be at the same office than me anyway. I have to do the same remote work as if I worked from home.

          • >"The company now is asking me to travel 600 miles a day"

            OK, well there is no question that is unreasonable.

            • Re:Pretty sure... (Score:4, Insightful)

              by ranton ( 36917 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @07:58AM (#64874221)

              >"The company now is asking me to travel 600 miles a day"

              OK, well there is no question that is unreasonable.

              If someone 2000 miles from the office doesn't have to come to the office, then someone 2 miles from the office with the same role, capabilities, and pay should not have to be there either. Commute distance has no impact on the value the company gains from the employee being at the office. If the company truly cannot get enough value from their employees without them being in the office, people who live far away should simply be fired. Either that or admit none of the employees should be forced into the office.

              The cognitive dissonance people who support "return to office" mandates is astounding.

              • That's more than sufficient to qualify for unemployment.
                Make a copy of the demand to relocate or quit, quit, or better wait to be fired, then take that to the unemployment office.

                Between now and then start job hunting.

                Been there, done that, albeit for a different reason.

              • There's no cognitive dissonance here at all unless you fabricate one from whole cloth. If an employee in an office is a certain percentage X more productive than a remote employee, office attendance should be mandated if the incremental cost of the office space Y used by that employee is less than X. If the company already has an office at a location, the incremental cost is zero so it makes sense to want employees in the office. If there is no local office, the incremental cost of getting one might be m
              • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

                by DesScorp ( 410532 )

                If someone 2000 miles from the office doesn't have to come to the office, then someone 2 miles from the office with the same role, capabilities, and pay should not have to be there either.

                Except that the guy 2 miles away can actually get there, and it's not an unreasonable request. And all you're going to do with that attitude is get the guy 2K away shitcanned.

                The cognitive dissonance people who support "return to office" mandates is astounding.

                No it isn't. It's your job. If your employer says "We require you to physically be here", then you can do it or you can find another job. The arrogance of employees telling employers "I'll work wherever I want, and you'll have nothing to say about it" is quite more astounding.

                Working from home can make a lot of sense in many cases, and

                • by dgatwood ( 11270 )

                  No it isn't. It's your job. If your employer says "We require you to physically be here", then you can do it or you can find another job. The arrogance of employees telling employers "I'll work wherever I want, and you'll have nothing to say about it" is quite more astounding.

                  The arrogance of employers telling employees, who previously had the freedom to work from wherever they want, that they must come into the office, without providing any actual evidence that this benefits the employees or the business, and without providing any compensation, either in the form of financial remuneration or additional time off to compensate for the additional time spent by workers, is even more astounding.

                  For many, it's the corporate equivalent of "We're going to increase you from 40 hours per

          • put in 3-4 hours of commute an day with only 2-3 hours left for real work at the office!

          • I work with an international team, and none of my coworkers will be at the same office than me anyway. I have to do the same remote work as if I worked from home.

            Some years ago, I led a meeting that was held between 2 sites over a teleconferencing system. This was pretty radical at the time (mid-'90s) and the system used several ISDN lines for the connection.

            One week, my boss suggested that I host the call from the other site, so I drove to the other location (another country, about 300 miles away), only to find that the team in that country blew off the meeting that week, so I was left teleconferencing with the team at the site where I normally worked.

        • by Malc ( 1751 )

          Here in the UK our work location is specified in our job contracts. An employer can't just vary this at will, and if such a change has a material impact on somebody's life, it triggers some laws. If they try to change the work location of multiple people then it triggers TUPE regulations that require the business to engage in employee consultations (whether or not the place is unionised). I'm sure other countries like Germany with its works councils have even stronger laws. If somebody's normal workplac

        • by DMDx86 ( 17373 )

          I imagine many of those people were hired under the pretense that their positions were to be either fully remote or hybrid.

          The only reason to do this is to lower the headcount, and getting people to leave rather than laying them off avoids the costs of severance. There isn't meaningful data supporting the productivity of in office vs. remote workers.

        • Something has changed since "just a minute ago" (which is actually several years ago now):

          1. Many people got to experience working from home, and found that it was outright superior for them.
          2. It was proven that working from home works fine and does not harm productivity, thus removing the false notion that working from an office was a practical necessity (depending on the nature of the work, of course).

          So, the cultural norm here has changed. Many people consider "working from home" to be good working con

        • You realize you are equating actually going to work as some horrible "working conditions eroding". Sounds a bit extreme. Just a minute ago, it was a given that people would go to work each day. I do. Countless millions do. Boo hoo :)

          Again, it is not like they are being asked to do something bad, strange, unusual, radical, or unexpected. ...

          My son-in-law's brother works for Amazon. He was hired before remote work was the norm (before Covid) and was allowed to work remote then because there is no Amazon office near him. He's been working remove for like 6-7 years. Therefore, this mandate is really means he has to move his family to a new city or quit. That seems at least 1 of "bad, strange, unusual, radical, or unexpected".

        • Again, it is not like they are being asked to do something bad, strange, unusual, radical, or unexpected.

          My commute is regularly all of those things.

      • by Hodr ( 219920 )

        I doubt the issue is benefits. It's more likely that they wish to avoid announcing layoffs and the impact that would have to their stock price.

    • Pretty sure employees always had the ability to quit for any reason they like...

      Yeah, but now they also have permission.

  • by chuckugly ( 2030942 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @12:44AM (#64873629)

    In my experience those who opt to quit are often the best worker bees.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I actually quit some years ago because of a return to office mandate. Not suggesting I'm the best worker bee, but I had options and didn't have any difficulty finding another job. The market was pretty good then, but I haven't looked lately.

      I made it very clear to my new employer that I wouldn't be in the office more than a few times a years, and as it worked out I've been there even less than that. I live about 3 hours from the office anyway.

      Meanwhile I see there are companies still struggling to hire peop

    • Amazon is staffed with people who started working there right out of college, and don't know any better.
  • by Jayhawk0123 ( 8440955 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @12:54AM (#64873645)

    considering this is what they wanted, for head count to drop.

    What i find weird though at how transparent they have become with this, is that apparently all of these companies don't see a difference between any employee... .. that every employee is a just a cog in the machine. If they saw value in employee performance, they would take steps to ensure staff are happy, and the best staff are retained.

    When you show staff the door... the first ones to leave, are your best performers... they know their worth, and will get another job in short order. The ones remaining, are likely to be too apathetic or unqualified to find another job, so they stick with it. Just the crowd you want driving innovation at your organization.

    But also... thanks guy, for letting the staff know they can leave... they didn't know it before and thought they were serfs for life. The effin ego on these tards.

    • by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @01:00AM (#64873651)

      Depending on the role, your best performers may not even need to find another job. Certain parts of aws, meta, google and apple are paid fuck-you money⦠if they leave hcol areas.

      • People who get paid fuck you money typically have fuck you debt. Sure you would think you could retire with your current lifestyle if you got paid $500k / yeah, but you wouldn't have your current lifestyle. You wouldn't be making repayments on a $600k house, you'd be making repayments on a $5m house. You wouldn't be driving a Ford, you'd be driving a Porsche, etc. Your cleaner won't be working for free, etc.

        People who earn a lot tend to not actually have significantly higher savings than the average middle

    • by Hodr ( 219920 )

      What makes you think they didn't take steps? They have been "3 days a week" in office for a while, but the only two people I know who work for Amazon have remained full remote and will continue to do so. Likely because they are both high value employees.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      What i find weird though at how transparent they have become with this, is that apparently all of these companies don't see a difference between any employee... .. that every employee is a just a cog in the machine. If they saw value in employee performance, they would take steps to ensure staff are happy, and the best staff are retained.

      Companies that see employees like that do not have a long-term future unless the employees are not needed for anything more complicated than burger flipping...

    • by RobinH ( 124750 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @07:25AM (#64874155) Homepage
      Large companies work hard to build a system such that employees are replaceable. It's the small shops where individual employees are key, and the company relies on them. If a company like Amazon can't lose a few employees without suffering, then its doing something wrong.
    • The scale of the business is such that one outstanding employee isn't going to make or break anything. Everyone working there is talented, no exceptions. That's why they got hired to begin with. They have more brilliant employees than they need, so they invite them to leave, instead of firing them. If you're good enough to stand out in that crowd, you've definitely got better things you can be spending your life and years on, than whatever Amazon is doing with you.

      When everyone is special, no one is special

  • by silentbozo ( 542534 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @12:59AM (#64873647) Journal

    Then they don't have to pay you severance (in the case of layoff) or unemployment (for termination).

    I have to ask though... are they so desperate not to layoff the managers that need to look busy that they're willing to fire the people who actually get the day to day work done in order to get bodies in the door? Are the VCs and investment banks that desperate to see Amazon packing bodies in buildings, and clogging up highways and roads with cars that they're essentially imposing these policies through Amazon C-suite management, or is this all some genius idea by the latest rotating cadres of VPs desperate to put accomplishments on their resume for when they jump to their next job?

    Seriously, it's kind of stupid to force you to show up into the office when it is highly likely that a large portion of your team and/or your clientele are not in the same location. That is, unless everybody has an office to take remote conferences in, and there are sufficient conference rooms for when you want to get multiple members of the same team in the same room?

    I've been in the hell that is doing a engineering team conference when you're colocated in an open plan office with both the sales and customer service people, and accounting in the corner... and they're all on individual calls the entire day.

    • It could be any number of those things, though none of us will ever know how productive is the work-from-home crowd at Amazon. Maybe they're all doing a great job as remote workers. Or... maybe not.

    • This is about quiet firing

    • by Malc ( 1751 )

      Some might argue that sitting engineers next to sales, marketing and customer care people gives them a better education about what is that their implementation is supposed to do ;)

  • by jhoegl ( 638955 )
    Ironic, as I got a solicitation for a job at Amazon.

    I blocked them.
    • Ironic, as I got a solicitation for a job at Amazon.

      I blocked them.

      Before you blocked them, you should've told them you were doing it - and why.

      • by Malc ( 1751 )

        The internet sure does miss the Usenet's kill files and the good old passive-aggressive "*plonk*" replies!

        • It's funny, I hadn't heard "*plonk*" in decades, and a couple of weeks ago I commented somewhere "I miss being able to *plonk* someone into my killfile and not have to see them on the internet anymore..."

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Smart decision. Amazon will find it harder and harder to get access to competent employees.

  • You know the bosses that just have to see the servers? Sounds like they hate the idea they can't scrutinize and control every movement.

    But that's opinion, and as geeks, we deal in facts, correct? (ha ha!)

    So where are the KPI's that show in office versus out of office? I'm not talking about "Buy your results" like J.D. Powell, I mean real evidence based metrics.
    Yes, I've seen those that show profitability is up with in office. Look below the fold and they are using smoke and mirrors on office space costs tha

  • If enough people take him up on his offer to work elsewhere, Amazon will be crying in it's beer over this decision.

    WFH is the future, and companies that don't get on board are going to be left in the dust as distributed organizations eat their lunch.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      WFH is the future, and companies that don't get on board are going to be left in the dust as distributed organizations eat their lunch.

      Indeed. And it is quite a big cost-saver. As a bonus, you get to identify all the no/low performers that coast along in an office setting.

      • I work my ass off because I'm working from home. My company hired me fully remotely and did a hybrid RTO for all employees who previously were full-time in the office before COVID. I was called before the announcement to ensure I knew I was not required to RTO as I was hired explicitly to be remote. I never want them to have the slightest idea that I'm under-performing. I'm not alone. My other fully remote colleagues are the top performers on the team. It turns out you can find great talent when you can sea

  • Laying people off is expensive, making them quit is cheap. Forcing people back to the office is an asshole move intended to make people quit. We've seen IBM, Yahoo and other companies do similar.

    The problem with being assholes is that all the people with in-demand skills will quit and all the deadwood will cling on tenaciously. So enjoy the brain drain Amazon. And the people remaining will take the reasonable attitude that if everything is by the contract then work the exact hours required and not a second

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Actually, making people quite is hugely expensive unless you very carefully isolated the people you want to retain. Still reduces your access to new talented people pretty strongly. Hence probably still a strategic loss.

    • Once companies reach a certain size, it's hard for them to keep really good employees anyway. It only takes a small number of people who play politics especially well but don't actually add value to spread mediocrity like cancer. Part of being a big company is transitioning to using ten mediocre employees to do the work of one good employee because that's all you can retain. It's a shame. But I'm not aware of any large company that has completely avoided it. Some of them do a good job of partitioning o
  • There was an article about this not so long ago, which sounded plausible, that companies are using such workplace mandates as a way to get rid of employees without paying them severance, redundancy, etc.. Getting them to quit rather than firing them is a whole lot cheaper.
    • I think it's true. I had a company offer us buy outs to leave on our own rather than wait for a layoff. It was open to all employees. Just like that buyout this kind of 'self-selection' culls your strongest employees, not your weakest.

      Who is more likely to be able to find a new job and move on? The top tier SRE or Bill over there who can't reboot a Linux box without a friend?

      • I was in that position once. I begged for the buyout. Turns out that it wasn't really open to all because my boss made sure I couldn't get it. In one sense that's quite nice that I was recognized to be of high value. On the other hand, it sure would have been nice. They could have offered me an equivalent amount to stay. I probably should have negotiated harder.
  • What is the alternative? That employees will have to go to the office and won't be allowed to quit?
  • I get a call, linkedin, or email at least every day from recruiters looking to hire for full-time or hybrid in-office positions. I used to always ask salary first to see if it was worth my time. Now I ask "Is this position fully remote?" They say no and I tell them "I have a fully remote position now. This is my salary. I will need 100k a year more to return to an office.".

    RTO might be something Amazon needs, but there is no end of fully remote positions out there paying just as well. You just need the righ

  • by byronivs ( 1626319 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @09:00AM (#64874391) Journal

    Keep it light, Amazon, maybe show a little skin? Wouldn't hurt now, would it, doll? See here what happend to ole Howie when his panties got all abunch. [cnn.com]

  • Some advice (Score:4, Informative)

    by MNNorske ( 2651341 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @09:34AM (#64874483)
    You as a person are more important than your job or your workplace. The greatest power you have in the workplace is to choose to show up or to leave.

    If your job changes in ways you don't like you can and should talk to your boss about it. And, if they cannot or will not change to keep you then you have two very simple options. Roll with it, you may find that in time you either are able to deal with it or things will change again as they almost always do. Or, you can leave.

    I personally have lived through my job being very sucky and found that time and again it changed back to being better later on. Was I frustrated? Yes. Should I have just chosen to move on? Probably, it would've been better for my mental health at the time I came darn near close to burnout on several occasions and I don't recommend letting yourself get there.

    I have seen coworkers get so bitter about their jobs that it soured even their personal lives. Some left of their own accord. Some had to be fired because they became poison to the office place. In every case when I heard back from them later they were happier once they landed on their feet. They were still bitter about how things ended but they were so much happier about where they were afterwards and were able to recognize that they had let their jobs drag them down. Given the choice between leaving and being fired I would recommend leaving.

    When you let your job or your workplace define you and consume you then you are in an unhealthy state. You are worth more than that. You are a son or daughter. Maybe you are a husband, wife, significant other, or a parent. Those are infinitely greater things to be than just a job. At my last church they would end every service by reminding us that "you are a child of God loved beyond measure." Let that identity be stronger than your workplace. I dearly would love to know that it helps someone not come to an end like my friend who recently died from drinking himself to death when he lost his job and apparently couldn't see the value that he had to his family and his friends.
  • by hwstar ( 35834 ) on Friday October 18, 2024 @10:06AM (#64874559)

    Employers can unilaterally change terms of the employment at any time and with no notice. These changes can be subtle, and can happen over a length of time. This can be used to entrap employees in unfavorable decisions by careful manipulation of the terms over time.

    For the employee the only option is a binary decision and a Hobson's Choice (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hobson%27s_choice) : Stay and accept the shitty new terms or get a new job, quit, and go elsewhere.

    The rest of the industrialized world use employment contracts which spell out the terms of employment. What happens here is if the terms of the contract become difficult to satisfy for the employer, and cause the employer economic hardship, the employee is let go and there rehired under less favorable terms. In the UK for example, some companies practice fire-to-rehire to reset the terms of the contract if the business can no longer support the original terms of the contract. (https://www.cipd.org/uk/knowledge/guides/fire-rehire-employer-guidance/) Fire-to-rehire is a much more formidable process then the CEO just deciding one day to change the terms of the employment arrangement.

    This is not to say that fire-to-rehire isn't practiced. Some UK companies use it often.

    However, as of 2024, The UK government is planning on cracking down on fire to rehire according to the link above:

    "The Government has indicated that it intends to replace the statutory code with a strengthened code of practice. The plan acknowledges that businesses may need to restructure where there is no alternative, but that there must be a proper process based on open dialogue between employers and workers. The plans propose restricting fire and rehire to very limited circumstances if the alternative is bankruptcy and mass redundancy and improving remedies against abuse."

    Now, some people may think that employment-at-will is what made the US great. But in recent times, this has not been the case. https://tradingeconomics.com/country-list/unemployment-rate?continent=world

    So American employers have it easy. They can "alter the deal further" (Apologies to Darth Vader) at any time. In the rest of the world it is much more difficult to change the terms of employment unless it is mutual.

  • ⦠then I should also probably migrate all our AWS products back on-prem. How the turntablesâ¦

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