Distraught Amazon employees send AWS chief an open letter against RTO policy, calling it an ‘outright abdication’ of its role as industry leader
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Frustrated Amazon (AMZN) employees opened another front in their fight against the company’s return-to-office mandate.
On Wednesday, 523 employees in the Amazon Web Services division sent its chief executive, Matt Garman, an open letter detailing their frustration with the new policy.
“Our time working remotely during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic proved that we are effective, creative, and successful without being primarily in-person, and to take no lessons from that experience would be extremely disappointing, because Amazon is and always will be a global company,” the open letter reads.
In September, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that as of January 2025, employees would have to return to the office five days a week. Amazon employees are currently expected to be in the office three days a week. The move set off a new wave of unrest at Amazon. Employees had previously voiced their displeasure with each new policy that required more days in the office through walkouts, open letters, and threatening to quit.
Jassy and Amazon’s senior leadership regularly cite the need to return to the office in order to increase collaboration and innovation. Executives have reiterated their belief that these tasks are better performed via in-person work than remote work.
The letter came as a response to comments Garman made to that effect during an all-hands meeting earlier this month.
“When we want to really, really innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we’re not in-person,” Garman said in comments reported by Business Insider. “There is just no substitute for getting up on a whiteboard and walking through what’s going on, having a brainstorm and stopping in the cubicle next to you.”
The research on whether remote or in-person work is better for a company is rather split. There is no doubt that flexible work is a desirable perk that helps attract talent, retain existing employees, and improve overall morale. However, the distance and lack of spontaneity caused by team members being remote does indeed inhibit collaboration and innovation, according to a July study published in Nature.
The question then becomes how to balance these two competing realities. An RTO policy that increases innovation, but leads to a staff exodus, would be self-defeating, the open letter argues.
“Return-to-office mandates tend to push out more senior and tenured employees across the board, who may be best poised to participate in and give insight into these whiteboarding and brainstorming sessions you refer to,” the letter reads.