Messages sent by Amazon to some employees this week, asserting that they aren’t complying with a corporate mandate to return to the office at least three days a week, is creating a new round of blowback over the policy.
“We are reaching out as you are not currently meeting our expectation of joining your colleagues in the office at least three days a week, even though your assigned building is ready,” read the messages, viewed by GeekWire and other publications. “We expect you to start coming into the office three or more days a week now.”
The messages were sent based on data about individual badge swipes to gain access to buildings, the company acknowledged in response to employees who said they believed they received the notifications in error.
According to Amazon’s reply to an internal support ticket, the emails were sent in cases where employees have badged-in fewer than three days a week for five or more of the past eight weeks, have not badged-in three days a week for three or more of the past four weeks, and their building has been ready eight weeks or more.
The messages were sent directly to individual employees. Amazon says it shares aggregated and anonymized badge-swipe data with managers, to provide an overall view of how many members of a team are coming into the office, for example, but doesn’t give managers data about badge swipes by individual employees.
The company instituted its return-to-office policy May 1. Tens of thousands of employees joined an internal Slack channel expressing frustration over the policy. The return-to-office mandate was one of the issues motivating some Amazon corporate and tech employees to walk out in an organized protest May 31.
Amazon is part of a wave of big companies seeking to bring employees back to the office on a regular basis. Zoom Communications, whose videoconferencing technology helped to enable the boom in remote work during the pandemic, joined the trend this week with a new hybrid work policy of its own.
Some Amazon employees, already opposed to the return-to-office policy, criticized the messages this week. Some said they they believed they received the notifications in error. A report by Insider cited an internal Slack channel in which one employee asked if workers needed to start taking selfies to prove they were in the office.
“While we’ve taken several steps to ensure this email went to the correct recipients, we recognize that there may be instances where we have it wrong,” Amazon said in its internal response. “If you believe that you received this email in error, please reach out to your manager to discuss your situation and ensure it is accurately reflected in the system.”
Some employees mocked the language in the notifications, specifically the company’s assertion that “you can feel the surge in energy and collaboration happening among Amazonians and across teams.”
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has repeatedly cited the benefits of working and collaborating in-person, including serendipitous exchanges and interactions.
“I know that for some employees, adjusting again to a new way of working will take some time,” Jassy acknowledged in a Feb. 17 memo. “But I’m very optimistic about the positive impact this will have in how we serve and invent on behalf of customers, as well as on the growth and success of our employees.”
Last month, the company asked some employees to relocate to ensure they’re close enough to work in person with others on their teams. Amazon said it has a process in place for requesting exceptions. The company also said employees who were asked to move would be given relocation benefits.
