2024-09-17 07:06:33
Amazon has ordered its employees to return to the office five days a week, CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a memo Monday.
The decision marks a major shift from Amazon’s previous back-to-work stance, which required corporate workers to be in the office at least three days a week. Now, the company is giving employees until Jan. 2 to begin complying with the new policy.
Corporate workers should be in the office five days a week “except in extenuating circumstances” or unless they’ve been granted an exemption by their organization’s S-team head, Jassy said, referring to the tight-knit group of executives who report to her CEO. Amazon.
“Before the pandemic, telecommuting was not a given”
“Before the pandemic, it was not a given that people could work remotely two days a week, and that will be the case in the future – our expectation is that people will be in the office except in exceptional circumstances,” said Jassy.
Amazon also plans to simplify its corporate structure with fewer managers in order to “remove layers and flatten organizations,” Jassy said. Each S-team organization is expected to increase the ratio of individual partners to managers by at least 15% by the end of the first quarter of 2025, he said.
The company rapidly increased its headcount during the pandemic before Jassy took the helm and instituted sweeping cost-cutting across Amazon, including the biggest layoffs in its 27 years as a public company.
Amazon’s headcount reached 1.53 million in the second quarter, representing an increase of just 5% from a year earlier. In comparison, Amazon’s workforce expanded 14% to 1.52 million workers in the second quarter of 2022.
Jassy wrote in a lengthy message to staff that Amazon is making the changes to strengthen its corporate culture and ensure it remains agile. He underscored this point by saying that the company created a “red tape mailbox,” or a special e-mail alias, to weed out any unnecessary procedures or excessive rules within the company.
Source: CNBC