Amazon’s CEO defends return-to-office policy, after some employees ask for a rethink

The CEO of Amazon, Andy Jassy, has reportedly defended the company’s return-to-office move and denied claims the plan is part of a ‘backdoor layoff.’

This comes after an announcement was made back in September where Jassy said in a published message: “…we’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID.”

Since then, some of Amazon’s employees have requested a rethinking of the approach that is intended to be brought in from January of next year.

The plan would require employees to be in every day which is an increase from the three days of work they are expected to be in currently.

Several months on and a transcript from an all-hands staff meeting has reportedly been seen by Reuters and CNBC, with the CEO speaking candidly about the plan.

“A number of people I’ve seen theorized that the reason we were doing this is, it’s a backdoor layoff, or we made some sort of deal with city or cities,” said Jassy, according to a transcript of the meeting reviewed by the two publishers.

“I can tell you both of those are not true. You know, this was not a cost play for us. This is very much about our culture and strengthening our culture,” he said.

When approached by Reuters, an Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.

In the initial message about the move, Jassy said: “…it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and investing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another.”

It was 17 months ago when the Amazon employees came back to the office for at least three days a week, with the CEO saying this time period has “strengthened our conviction about the benefits.”

Last month, more than 500 employees from the cloud-computing division were reported as having asked the company to rethink its plans.

Featured Image: AI-generated via Ideogram

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