Two thoughts on the Amazon RTO policy
Having read quite a few reactions to the Amazon policy change regarding returning to (the pre-corona normal) 5 days in the office, I'd like to highlight two aspects from the conversations. To be clear, my intention is not to per se argue in favor of the new policy, rather to discount much of the noise around it.
Firstly, the interests of the company and the current employees might wildly differ on this topic. While in tech we got used to employer and employee incentives being pretty well aligned, and thus to very limited conflicts, this has been historically atypical (just think about trade unions). This may be very well a situation where the strong interest of the current workforce is to be able to keep working from home, while at the same time for the company it would be beneficial to RTO. My personal experience in any case aligns with what Jassy says: maintaining and building cultural capital and trust (that one can spend in difficult times) happens through interactions, and being colocated increases both the number and depth of these.
Onboarding new team members is also more effective in person in most organizations in my experience, especially in an org driven deeply by culture and mission (and less by documented-in-detail process). Which is a fundamental interest for the company, less so for the folks already working there.
This may lead even to a situation of cognitive dissonance where one realizes that work is less effective in a remote settings, while one enjoys the additional comfort impact of remote work on activities besides work.
This mismatch of interests thus becomes a confounding factor for much of the data one can gather and opinions one may come across (like internal employee surveys, or experts opinions from folks who make their dough from consulting on remote work), which makes it not very useful to understand whether this step is in the interest of the company.
Secondly, I find it difficult to say at this time if this is a good move or not. Besides the primary goal stated in the announcement, there are a number of potential second-order effects (like the outflow of talent, which will mean a cost, but also an opportunity to bring in fresh talent, and the extent of which is difficult to predict, as ~75% say they are considering other opportunities, while the opportunities are not necessarily there in the current market) that may have both positive and negative consequences. Given the number of openings on amazon.jobs, I am not inclined to believe in a secret strategy of a silent layoff in any case.
The point I'd like to make is that in my view it's impossible to predict if this will work out in the benefit of the company or not. However if one believes that Amazon is in the process of sliding into Day 2, or already in Day 2, then the potential costs and risks weigh less, as the company is already in stagnation/decline, and thus continuing on the business as usual path is not perceived as ideal or even feasible. The other measure - reducing bureaucracy - is aligned with this line of thinking. Thus the senior Amazon leadership team (S-team) may have simply come to the conclusion that they need to act, even considering the substantial risks. It would also be really interesting to know how serious the situation is in the views of the S-team - is it considered a slight course correction or a mayor intervention?
Ultimately, the outcome of this road in my view is not a given at this time, a lot will depend on implementation, factors outside the company, etc., and it will be very interesting to watch how it works out, especially in tandem with other ongoing changes like the rationalization of AWS services. These effects will also happen across time, and especially the negative ones may be stronger in the short term (people who don't want to be every day in the office leave, but once they are gone, the pain is over, and new talent may be tapped who are looking forward to an intense and productive period in their career to make an impact one can make at a company like Amazon).
As a conclusion, in my opinion the correct way of thinking about whether this RTO decision is right for the company depends on the estimated likelihood of the various outcomes AND their perceived value. And the result is not unknown, but unknowable at this time, because it has not happened yet.
Finally, two books I found useful advice in on thinking about situations like these: 1) Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke and 2) Superforecasting by Tetlock and Gardner.
P.S. and disclosure: I left Amazon mid 2021, so I have neither a personal horse in this, nor any insider information or sources. I hold some Amazon stock. I personally do enjoy working in offices most of the time, especially with an unlimited high-quality coffee supply.