‘Strongly dissatisfied’: Amazon employees plead for reversal of 5-day RTO mandate in anonymous survey
Some Amazon workers are refusing to "disagree and commit," as one of the company's famed leadership principles requires of those who aren't on board with a decision.
Instead, hundreds of the online retailing giant's employees are complaining that CEO Andy Jassy's five-days-per-week return-to-office mandate, announced last week, will negatively impact their lives—and productivity at work—and how they hope the company will reverse course.
The feedback is from an anonymous survey created by Amazon employees that was viewed by Fortune on Tuesday. Corporate employees have shared it widely via the messaging app Slack, including in one "remote advocacy" Slack channel with more than 30,000 members that a former employee created when Amazon first announced a three-day return-to-office mandate last year.
As a result, employees who are in favor of remote or hybrid work may have been more likely to respond to the survey and therefore skew the findings.
As of the afternoon of September 24, the average satisfaction rating related to the RTO mandate among survey respondents was 1.4 out of scale up to 5 (with 1 meaning "strongly dissatisfied" and 5 representing "strongly satisfied"). The survey's creators said in an introduction to their questionnaire that they plan to aggregate and share the results by email with Jassy and other company executives "to provide them with clear insight into the impact of this policy on employees, including the challenges identified and proposed solutions."
"We are seeking honest, constructive feedback on the recent decision to require a 5-day return to the office schedule," the survey introduction reads.
An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment.
Amazon has used a hybrid work structure for the past 15 months before Jassy's recent bombshell announcement that most corporate employees would be required to work a full five-day work week from their local Amazon office starting in January.
"When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant,” Jassy wrote last week. “I’ve previously explained these benefits, but in summary, we’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another.”
Jassy explanation about the new mandate, and a second one announcing a planned thinning of middle management, came across as tacit acknowledgements of a fraying corporate culture inside Amazon in recent years, as Fortune recently detailed.
Fortune has talked to and messaged with several dozen Amazon corporate employees since last week's announcement, with most opposing Jassy's decision for reasons including reduced productivity during in-office work days and leadership's lack of trust in rank-and-file employees and managers, based on the change in RTO policy. They also complained about the impact the policy will have on single parents and a lack of data explaining the decision from a company whose leaders often talk up data-backed decision-making.
Some, however, applauded the move in communications with Fortune and argued that using the length or cost of commutes as excuses to avoid five days in the office weekly would have seemed absurd just a few years ago pre-pandemic.
Still, most respondents opposed the change or cited complications that the new policy will create.
"I work with people across many time zones," one response read. "With RTO, they no longer have the flexibility to easily shift hours and collaborate. 3 day had an instant impact here, and 5 day will only be worse."
As for a solution, the employee suggested "more realistic work expectations if we're eliminating WFH."
"Amazon got used to people having an extra 5-10 hours a week to work because we weren't commuting," the employee said. "RTO means that we no longer have the extra time to commit to Amazon and expectations of employees needs to adjust to reflect that. On a similar note, we need to accept that RTO places hard limits on meeting times. I can't hop onto an 8am meeting with the folks in HQ2 or the East Coast anymore. When I was at home, I could jump on early or late meetings pretty easily, but I'm physically unable to do that now."
Several respondents focused on the trust, or distrust factor, and the fear, echoed by many employees, that the move will drive out top talent who can easily find work elsewhere, while other groups with fewer options remain.
"The people that leave first are the strong engineers you want to work with," one wrote. "Others that can't find new jobs or can't leave due to visa are miserable and quiet quit. Anyone left that actually wants to work has to pick up the slack."
Yet another, echoing others, said they believe that the mandate "ignores the challenge of requiring people to come into an office, but all of their work and every meeting is executed over chime or video conference."
Most of those who chose "satisfied" or "strongly satisfied" did not leave remarks beyond their rating, or left a negative remark that signaled they may have accidentally selected a positive rating.
The bad news for those dissatisfied with the new return-to-the-office rule is that when a group of Amazon employees sent a six-page memo to leadership last year making the case to reverse the original three-day in-office mandate, it was dismissed. With Jassy and team digging in their RTO heels further, it's hard to imagine these results producing any significant change.
Are you a current or former Amazon employee with thoughts on this topic or a tip to share? Contact Jason Del Rey at jason.delrey@fortune.com, jasondelrey@protonmail.com, or through secure messaging app Signal at 917-655-4267. You can also message him on LinkedIn or at @delrey on X.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
