Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently told employees that those who do not want to return to the office at least three days a week should consider finding employment elsewhere. According to a recording obtained by Insider, Jassy stated “It’s past the time to disagree and commit,” adding that if employees cannot commit to the new hybrid work model, “it’s probably not going to work out for you at Amazon.” He characterized the decision to have employees return to the office part-time as a “judgment call.” Notably, Jassy said employees are free to leave if they do not want to comply with the hybrid work requirement. This makes clear that Amazon has not changed its stance on returning to office work despite some employees preferring full remote arrangements.
When COVID hit and the company I was with at the time went 100% remote, upper management discovered our productivity went up. That same company started forcing people back into the office as soon as they could. Watching a team of executives intentionally harm their company and try to justify it was wild. It wasn’t about being profitable, it was about control for controls sake.
productivity went up
I suspect this is partially a result of change, not that work from home was implemented. Shaking up a work environment (for something more desirable to the employee) is always a morale and productivity boost. Move everyone from a bull pen to offices, or move to a new facility where there are fewer distractions and new equipment, or simply change the work schedule to a 9x9 or 4x10 and you’ll see short term gains. .
Regardless of the cause of the productivity boost, full time WFH will come at the expense of training young (or new to the field) employees. Ironically, part of the cost of training new employees comes out of the billable hours of the experienced ones. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a 20%-25% reduction in output of an employee who is given an intern or new hire to mentor. That won’t happen when you’re remote because the new hire can’t constantly bug you for simple requests, ask for more work, or require active review and monitoring of their work process. But in a couple of years, you’ll have two people at 100% (nominal) output in return for the loss in productivity of the mentor.
It’s said that it takes 150% of the annual salary in costs to a company to replace someone. Having mentored young engineers, most cost me far more in the first year than I billed, and it took close to 3 years to break even - and that’s at a relatively low salary. To have mentored someone remotely for the first year would have likely taken even longer to get them up to speed and profitable. In the short term, moving your office of independently competent individuals remote should absolutely produce a boost in productivity.
Anyway, it’s this long view that is the actual, actionably logic behind the return to the office. That isn’t to excuse the micromanagers who’s only job was to walk around and remind people to put covers on their TPS reports - they are no more than overpaid hall monitors and a relic that should die. It also doesn’t excuse the upper managers who never understood the concept of sunk cost in college and feel that they need to fill the seats in the building where they have another 8 years on their lease.
Regardless of the cause of the productivity boost, full time WFH will come at the expense of training young (or new to the field) employees.
Employers these days don’t bother with that any more, so that doesn’t explain it.
Google just told me that three million people graduate from college each year full of technical knowledge but with effectively zero workplace skills and more than 5 out of 6 get jobs. All those people pretty much need to be trained from scratch. Does it affect every workplace? No. But for the vast majority of large companies there is a constant flow of fresh blood they need to beat into the corporate mold.
1 out of every 6 college graduates not getting a job is a full-blown jobs crisis.
“In the first six months post graduation”, is the qualifier to that stat, I believe
When I was a kid, a college degree was a job ticket, so that’s still seriously alarming.
A company I worked for went full on into a corporate workspace refresh to open concept during COVID. Writing was on the wall and they tried to recall people 3 months into COVID-which failed spectacularly. I found a remote job shortly after and while I do go in from time to time on my own account, I don’t really miss traffic or open office plans.
It probably wouldn’t work, but I’ve been wondering whether it would be possible to use the shareholders of publicly traded companies against them in these situations.
I’ve seen people mention that companies are obligated to maximize profits for their shareholders (might not be true everywhere, and my knowledge on the subject is extremely limited).
If there was data available for a given company that showed that profits were increased during a period where a substantial part (or all) of the employees worked from home, and then the company starts forcing the employees back to the office, could the board not be called upon to force the company to keep people in work-from-home-mode? Would the company not be obliged to do that, to maximize the profits? It seems to me that this would be in the best interest of the shareholders.
Nope, because the biggest shareholders in the vast majority of companies are financial institutions like Blackrock, that coincidentally have large commercial real estate portfolios as well.
Individual shareholders are a drop in the ocean next to that immense amount of centralized wealth. When you think of shareholders, it’s not even the 1%, it’s a couple hundred people who own everything.
Thanks, that makes perfect sense, and gels perfectly with my knowledge on the subject being ridiculously limited 😅
Are there any really big companies that don’t have shareholders? Just curious if it’s even possible to get really big without selling stock. Guess it’s probably a thing that even if there are any that don’t, they probably still have investors. Would be fun to know if there are companies out there that managed everything just on their product, growing organically I guess.
edit: to partially answer my own question, here is Wikipedia’s list of the largest private non-governmental companies by revenue.
You can get reasonably big, but in most Western markets public companies who are owned by the same few institutions have a controlling anticompetitive share.
And real estate. Don’t forget real estate.
To be honest, it is also a bit about productivity. Doing full remote will in time become less efficient, at least I notice an uptick in how smooth interactions go after we have been physically together a bit more. There is no reason why it has to happen all the time, though.
But the task for management should really be to make people want to come to the office. I.e. make it a better place to be than at home, and ensure commutes are short and flexible. In my team, the typical commute is about 10 minutes, and most of us will go to the office to meet, have lunch, and get a break from home. We are social creatures, and meeting people is good for us.
I tell you one way they could do that - offer extra money to people for every day they’re in the office, to offset the expenditures on gas, maintenance, and incidentals, as well as the opportunity cost of time lost on commute and preparing meals. I did the math, with the thirty minute commute one way, I save about $2.5K a year on gas alone.
As someone who has the option to go full remote but does not do well with it, I’d be happy to at least get extra stuff covered. My public transportation is not cheap, and the food situation is a mess.
During an interview, a high-tech company insisted on being at the office 4 days/week, said no-thanks to my application when I asked to come on average 2 days/week in the office due to the commute.
I understand the need to have regular in-person meetings, but insisting on coming 3-4 days/week in the office when then work can be done remotely seems more about control than productivity. It’s also extra unpaid hours spent commuting.
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There is a lot to criticize Amazon for, but this wouldn’t be anywhere near my top pick.
Small convenience? A lot of goods these days can only be bought online, and buying them from a no-name website is a great way to get your card number stolen. Using Amazon is basically mandatory.
This is just false. That thing you’re buying from Amazon? Just go to the manufacturer’s website and buy it directly. Or if it’s a no-name thing like a generic charging cable, just buy it from literally any other generic [category] retailer.
My wife and I got sick of paying for prime, so we decided to try going a couple months buying as much as we can directly from the brand’s website. It’s easy. Customer service is way better, selection is way better, I don’t have to worry about getting fake crap. Only downside is that shipping usually takes longer, but that’s a small price to pay.
Amazon sucks.
That thing you’re buying from Amazon? Just go to the manufacturer’s website and buy it directly.
That works if the manufacturer is reputable, but if I want to buy some obscure gadget from a Chinese company whose name looks like the result of somebody mashing their face on a keyboard, no way in hell am I buying it direct.
Or if it’s a no-name thing like a generic charging cable, just buy it from literally any other generic [category] retailer.
Are those guys really any better than Amazon?
Side note: one nice thing about Amazon is I can have items delivered to a locker at a nearby grocery store, instead of having it sent to my apartment building and hoping the courier delivers it to me and not someone else with a vaguely similar name. Couriers keep delivering other people’s packages to me. I even encountered one courier who didn’t speak English and couldn’t read apartment number signs, and had to basically do his job for him. It’s seriously disturbing how bad package delivery is these days. Is there some way to get non-Amazon deliveries sent to some reliable pickup location?
if I want to buy some obscure gadget from a Chinese company
Buy it from aliexpress for 1/4 the price.
Are those guys really any better than Amazon?
For sure. They’re not all great, but they’re all better than Amazon if you’re looking at things from a worker treatment or anti-monopolistic standpoint. I’ve never heard of best buy workers pissing in jars because they can’t take a long enough break to go to the bathroom.
Now if only Best Buy had a complete selection of computer parts. I miss Fry’s so much.
Dude you had to bring up Fry’s, every time I think about that place a single tear rolls down my cheek.
Walking into that store used to feel like waking up in Christmas morning.
I think it’s important to remember that, much like Walmart, for many it’s not just a “small convenience.” For many it is and if you can go without it then do so. But it’s more complicated then simply logging out of amazon for many. Frankly, it’s another example of privilege - one that people should exercise if they can.
Jepp, for me it is barely a convenience so I don’t even have an amazon account. I’m not American; seems like it’s pretty important for a lot of people over there, unfortunately.
So this applies to those like me and others, if you can, stop using it. But I also believe these kind of boycotts don’t make much of a dent without some serious organization.
I think it’s less about boycotting Amazon and more about supporting other (hopefully better) companies. It is not realistic for us to get Amazon to shut down, but it is realistic for us to support competitors and keep them at least surviving.  Better to have other companies with their own store fronts then everybody consolidated on Amazon.
Hilarious that the company that pioneered cloud solutions and made working from home for a ton of people ridiculously easier decides that their employees don’t deserve to work from home. Something something corporate office real estate crisis.
Wait until you hear about Zoom: https://www.businessinsider.com/zoom-ceo-employees-return-to-office-2023-8?op=1
Tbf this is the same guy that absolutely raked his own company’s flagship software over the coals while telling them it’s time to come back to the office
If we’ve learned anything from recent real estate crises, it’s that once again, the losses will be socialized, with golden parachutes aplenty.
Reminds me of how I read awhile back that commercial mortgage-backed securities are pretty prevalent in today’s major investment portfolios. This more recent article reads to me like, “don’t panic, everything is fine, nothing to worry about here”
Am I glad I got out of that toxic place.
Startups wringing their hands in anticipation
It’s amazing how for a culture that fetishizes “freedom” we’re willing to accept a reality where you have to give it up for half your waking life just to live and provide for your family.
I wish we would stop.
What really amazes me as a european is that while I still think we have to work too much for our modern times we only do a fraction of your average work hours and that cases no issues whatsoever.
It’s almost as if working more is not necessarily more productive
If somebody told me it’s past time to commit I’d commit to calling them a cunt. What a horrible horriblw cunt
guys come work for my company we have embraced the work remote life style.
Alright I’m in. What do we do for the world?
Honestly as long as it’s not “Accrue money for bezos so he can shoot his phallic rockets into space” it’s probably better for the world.
I’m in
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Thousands of workers signed a petition against the mandate and staged a walkout in response.
In a recording of the meeting obtained by Insider, Jassy told workers, “It’s past the time to disagree and commit,” adding that “if you can’t disagree and commit… it’s probably not going to work out for you at Amazon because we are going back to the office at least three days a week.”
The Verge reached out to Amazon with a request for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
On top of ongoing layoffs, Amazon has been cracking down on employees who refuse to return to the office.
In July, leaked messages seen by Insider suggested that Amazon would force a “voluntary resignation” on employees who don’t relocate to the in-person hubs where their teams work while others just began quitting on their own.
The company has also started sending warnings to workers about their in-person attendance, according to Insider.
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I’m lucky in that my employer went the opposite direction. Downsizing our local office and just letting us all be 100% remote. We’re a geographically distributed group so it doesn’t make sense to enforce office requirements.
“You’re coming into the office too, right?”
. . .
“You’ll be in the office too?”
Easy layoffs without having to pay severance, can just claim they refused to move.
Amazon built up half the property in south lake union and Bellevue and now they’re trying to justify why they did that. God knows they could have saved a ton of money if they hadn’t.
Now’s the perfect time for competitors to arise that haven’t wasted enormous amounts of resources on that kind of thing, and who can draw on a nice big pool of talent looking to leave Amazon.
Maybe it’s time to consider alternative cloud providers at work. AWS is pretty good but they’re going to alienate a ton of talented engineers by doing this.
This is an important point. What cloud providers are flexible on engineer working conditions? I’d imagine they’d all be smaller scale providers?
I know from a friend that works for GCP that they are up his ass to get back into the office and have been for a while. Not sure on Azure but I think you’re right that it’s probably going to be small cap places.
Brain drain is terminal for a technology product (most of the time). In the short term I’ll focus on making our products portable (migrating ec2 init scripts to docker, using frameworks for server less instead of using direct apis etc…). And when the time comes switch to whatever is best.
“Disagree and commit” = do what I say or quit. Worker exploitation has many douchey buzz phrases.
It’s funny, because the original purpose of that phrase was “There is a period during which you can voice your concerns about new or changed ops and procedures, and once the dust has settled, you’ll feel better about what comes out of the oven because you had a hand in making it.” Instead, the new age Jack Welch management types saw the phrase and decided it means “You don’t have to like what we say but you have to obey it.”
Surprisingly, the latter interpretation does not lead to a happier healthier workplace with high retention rates. Who would’ve thought?
It’s not intended to. It’s intended to make the CEO happy.
Thanks for the history, I am not surprised it evolved like that. Reminds me of Agile. It was a great concept that morphed into ‘micromanagement with extra steps’ in many shops.
I suspect that the natural next evolution is dropping the option to disagree, and requiring fake enthusiasm a la Walmart.
Notably, Jassy said employees are free to leave if they do not want to comply with the hybrid work requirement.
This sort of statement always makes me raise an eyebrow. There are very few situations where employees are not “free to leave” and most of them are not good.
Amazon and several other companies hired like crazy during pandemic. Now they’re trying to shrink the workforce via a combination of outright layoffs and tight policies to make anyone on the verge of quitting go ahead and do it so they don’t have to pay severance.
Bonus points for shedding older, more experienced, more expensive employees vs. cheaper early in career employees.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1324557/quarterly-number-of-amazon-employees/
