For most Amazon employees around the world, it’s a full-time return to the office, but for some who work for the tech giant and online retailer, it’s not a welcome change.
“People on my team are very upset about this,” said CJ Felli, a systems development engineer at Seattle-based Amazon Web Services.
Amazon employees, which include 8,000 people in Canada, have been working mostly remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2023, they are allowed to work on a hybrid schedule — two days remotely and three days in the office.
As of January 2, that requirement in the office changed to five days a week.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a letter to employees in September that the company “will go back to being in the office we were in before the start of COVID.”
Amazon is one of the most high-profile companies to phase out remote work entirely, but some of its employees are unhappy with the change and want to see proof that more time spent in the office strengthens collaboration and culture.
Employees worried about lack of data
“We’re told it leads to increased collaboration between teams and innovation,” Felli said in an interview with CBC News. “But whenever we ask for data, which is Amazon’s bread and butter, they’re never willing to provide it.”
Felli spoke out against this latest back-to-work mandate, along with 523 other Amazon employees who wrote a letter to Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman, saying they were “appalled” by the “non-startup of data.” explanation” for the five-day term in the office and in the letter he expressed the advantages of working remotely.
Felli believes that 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 personally breaking the monotony really helps,” he said.
What workers want
About 18.7 percent of employed Canadians worked mostly from home as of May 2024, according to Statistics Canada. That’s about six percent lower than in May 2021, but remains more than twice as high as before the pandemic.
A flexible workplace is a great attraction for workers, according to a workplace trends report from the global staffing agency Robert Half.
About 40 percent of employees surveyed said they prefer hybrid work, spending two to three days a week in the office. Employers surveyed said they would prefer their teams to work four days a week.
“That dance between employee and employer suggests we’re still on the road to perfecting that combination,” said David King, senior director at Robert Half in Toronto.
The June 2024 online survey included responses from 1,800 hiring managers and more than 1,750 workers in finance and accounting, technology, marketing, legal, administrative and customer support and human resources in Canada.
Hybrid work remains a priority for some companies — 37 percent of managers surveyed offer hybrid jobs specifically to attract skilled talent.
According to the job posting website Indeed, the percentage of job postings in Canada that mention telecommuting/hybrid work has remained stable over the past two years.
“There’s an advantage to anything that allows your workforce to be fully engaged. And today it seems to be a form of hybrid,” King said.
Tug of war in the workplace
Amazon is one of the biggest companies returning to fully personal work, but there are others making similar moves.
In September, Dell asked its global sales team to come into the office five days a week to deliver “the best innovation, value and service” to its customers, according to a statement emailed to CBC News.
AT&T entered 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, Gigadata’s chief operating officer, explaining that the main motivators are improving employee mental health and increasing productivity.
“The possibility of a spontaneous meeting just adds a lot of value,” he said.
During the start of the pandemic, Gigadat’s staff of over 100 people were allowed to work remotely and then hybridly, but the company quickly returned to fully in-person work.
“Even when you have someone who may be working from home, they’re excluded from that conversation when you’re all around that meeting room,” Nywening said, “that face-to-face is so important.”
Although he admits that it was not an easy decision to bring everyone back and wonders if they lost some employees because of it.
Amazon faces challenges
But he’s glad his company made an early move and sees the challenge ahead of Amazon.
“The longer you have this hybrid remote experience, the harder it will be to get back to, you know, a somewhat normal office work experience,” Nywening said.
Felli, an Amazon employee, still believes the future is hybrid and hopes his employer will change course.
“Our whole bread and butter is selling products to remote people and selling products to people who want to work remotely. So if we can’t enable remote work, what are we selling?” asked Felli.
“It’s kind of the catalyst to get me going.”
