Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has announced (opens in a new tab) plans to return many of the company’s employees to the office permanently after the trial period hybrid work in the last three years.
In a message to the company’s 1.6 million employees, Jassy explained some of the benefits he anticipates under the updated return-to-office mandate, including several related to productivity and even a knock-on effect on the wider community.
Recognizing that changing the habits of thousands of office workers is not a simple move, Jassy suggested May 1, 2023 as the effective date of the revision, offering more than two months for individual teams to develop plans.
Amazon returns to the office
The Employee Notice outlines many related benefits, including the importance of workplace culture to professional development and social skills. Jassy points out that more contact with co-workers gives more opportunities to ask ad hoc questions that otherwise they wouldn’t ask themselves from behind their screens.
This lack of interaction, Amazon and many other companies say, puts new hires at a disadvantage. Jassy explains:
“…our new hires, especially those who have joined us in the last few years, are the hardest hit because they don’t have the opportunity to learn and mentor from their peers that many of us who joined much earlier had.”
More broadly, Jassy expects local communities around Amazon jobs to benefit from the added economic boost that workers will provide.
As this is early notice, the company hasn’t worked out the exact details of the execution and will likely leave it to smaller departments to figure out what works best. Then there’s the fact that different roles require different working methods; corporate employees are likely to see the greatest effects. However, while the career benefits are numerous, the move could make employees who applied for jobs under a hybrid job setup feel redundant.