Some Amazon employees refuse to “disagree and commit,” as one of the company’s famed leadership principles requires of those who disagree with a decision.
Instead, hundreds of employees at the online retail giant are complaining that CEO Andy Jassy’s five-day-a-week return-to-the-office mandate, announced last week, will negatively impact their lives — and productivity at work. the work – and how they hope the company will reverse course.
The feedback comes from an anonymous survey of Amazon employees viewed by Fortune on Tuesday. Company employees shared it widely on the messaging app Slack, including in a Slack “remote advocacy” channel with more than 30,000 members that a former employee created when Amazon first imposed a three-day return-to-the-office mandate last year announced.
As a result, employees who favor remote or hybrid working are more likely to have responded to the survey earlier, thereby distorting the findings.
As of the afternoon of September 24, the average satisfaction score among respondents regarding the RTO mandate was 1.4 off the scale of 5 (where 1 means “very dissatisfied” and 5 means “strongly satisfied”). The creators of the survey said in an introduction to their questionnaire that they plan to aggregate the results and share them by email with Jassy and other business leaders “to give them a clear understanding of the impact of these policies on employees , including the identified challenges and proposed solutions.” .”
“We are looking for honest, constructive feedback on the recent decision to require a five-day return to the office,” the survey’s introduction reads.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.
Amazon has been using a hybrid work structure for the past fifteen months, before Jassy’s recent announcement that most of the company’s employees would have to work a full five-day week from their local Amazon office starting in January.
“As we look back on the past five years, we continue to believe that the benefits of being in the office together are significant,” Jassy wrote last week. “I’ve explained these benefits before, but in summary we’ve seen that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice and reinforce our culture; collaboration, brainstorming and inventing are easier and more effective, and learning from each other is better connected; another.”
Jassy’s explanation of the new mandate, and a second announcing a planned thinning of middle management, came across as a tacit admission of a fractured corporate culture within Amazon in recent years. Fortune recently detailed.
Fortune has spoken and messaged dozens of Amazon employees since last week’s announcement, with most opposing Jassy’s decision, citing, among other things, reduced productivity during office workdays and leadership’s lack of confidence in regular employees and managers, based on the change in RTO policy. They also complained about the impact the policy will have on single parents and the lack of data to explain the decision from a company whose leaders often talk about data-driven decision making.
Some, however, welcomed the move in communication Fortune and argued that using the length or cost of commuting as an excuse to avoid being in the office five days a week would have seemed absurd just a few years ago, before the pandemic.
Still, most respondents were against the change or cited complications that the new policy would bring.
“I work with people in many time zones,” read one response. “With RTO, they no longer have the flexibility to easily shift hours and collaborate. Three days had an immediate impact here, and five days will only be worse.”
As for a solution, the employee suggested “more realistic work expectations if we eliminate WFH.”
“Amazon got used to people having to work an extra five to 10 hours a week because we weren’t on the road,” the employee said. “RTO means we no longer have the extra time to commit to Amazon and employee expectations need to be adjusted to reflect that. Similarly, we must accept that RTO sets hard limits on meeting times. I can’t jump into an 8am meeting with the people at HQ 2 or on the East Coast. When I was at home I could attend early or late meetings quite easily, but now I can’t physically do that anymore.’
Several respondents focused on the trust, or distrust, factor and the fear, echoed by many employees, that this move will drive away top talent who can easily find work elsewhere, while leaving other groups with fewer options.
“The people who leave first are the strong engineers you want to work with,” one person wrote. “Others who can’t find a new job or can’t leave because of a visa, feel miserable and quietly resign. Anyone who actually wants to work has to catch up.”
Yet another, echoing others, said they believe the mandate “ignores the challenge of requiring people to come into an office but have all their work and every meeting done via call or video conference.”
Most people who chose “satisfied” or “very satisfied” did not leave comments beyond their rating, or left a negative comment that indicated they may have accidentally chosen a positive rating.
The bad news for those dissatisfied with the new return-to-the-office rule is that when a group of Amazon employees sent a six-page memo to leadership last year advocating a rollback of the original mandate of three days in the office, it was rejected. As Jassy and his team continue to monitor their RTO heels, it’s hard to imagine these results leading to any significant change.
Are you a current or former Amazon employee with thoughts on this topic or a tip to share? Contact Jason Del Rey at jason.delrey@fortune.com, jasondelrey@protonmail.comor via the secure messaging app Signal at 917-655-4267. You can also send him a message on LinkedIn or at @delrey on X.
