Amazon's big new RTO policy

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In today's big story, a tech giant calls its workers back to the office … for good.

The big story

Remote employees, be warned: Your days working from home are numbered.

That revelation comes after Amazon announced it wants employees back in the office five days a week starting this January. The tech giant's in-office requirements will return to "the way we were before the onset of COVID," according to a memo from CEO Andy Jassy.

We also got our hands on the 22-question document outlining frequently asked questions about the new mandate — along with a leaked FAQ outlining the company's plans to meet its new goal to have fewer managers

Some Amazon employees quickly criticized the RTO plan in internal Slack messages viewed by Business Insider. One employee wrote on Slack, "This is not 'going back' to how it was before. It's just going backwards."

Amazon has fought to get its workers back in the office for almost two years. In February 2023, it announced plans to require most office workers to show up in-person three days a week.

The initial mandate didn't go over well with employees, but Amazon stuck to its guns. It threatened termination against non-compliant workers and cracked down on "coffee badging" employees who stopped briefly in the office just to satisfy the mandate.

Amazon's announcement could be the nail in hybrid work's coffin.

Fully remote jobs are rare, but plenty of employers still offer some in-office flexibility. (Wall Street is one exception, as firms have mostly called their employees back to the office full-time.)

But Amazon's decision will embolden any employer looking to get their people back to their desks for good. It's a lot easier to make the case for in-office work when one of the biggest companies in the world subscribes to it.

And in the hyper competitive world of Big Tech, other tech giants might follow suit rather than risk getting bad-mouthed by rivals to their clients. How can insert Big Tech company really serve you best when its people are home half the time?

That doesn't mean it will go over well. Experts cautioned that the cost of calling workers back to their cubicles five days a week could also be high enough in terms of morale and retention that bosses should tread carefully. Employees will also point to the time lost commuting and say their productivity hasn't dropped when working from home.

Meanwhile, employers will use words like "culture" and "collaborate" as reasons for getting everyone in the office. (Jassy used them 12 and five times, respectively, in his new memo.) And they're probably not pumped about things like "quiet vacations" or "hushed hybrid" taking place under their noses.

The reality is both sides are right. A survey from McKinsey found that companies with workers who stayed in the same spot — be it the office or home — reported lower revenue growth than those with a hybrid setup.

Curated by Dan DeFrancesco.

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