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Five years after the early days of COVID, the majority of workers who can work from home are working from home at least some of the time, according to Gallup. But those employees no longer include workers from Amazon. As of last week, the company's 350,000 corporate employees are expected to come to the office five days a week. Workplace experts are watching closely to see what influence this shift may have on other companies. I should mention here that Amazon is among NPR's financial supporters and pays to distribute some of our content, but we cover them like any other company. From member station KUOW in Seattle, Monica Nickelsburg reports.
MONICA NICKELSBURG, BYLINE: Amazon declined to be interviewed for this story, but in a public memo, CEO Andy Jassy said its full return to the office will strengthen company culture, collaboration and mentorship. As an early-career data scientist at Amazon, Sam Rainier sees the value in that.
SAM RAINIER: When I started all remote, you know, there was a couple people on a team that were, like, senior level, and they're obviously, like, these go-to people for information. But I still felt like it was very daunting to poke my head in their office virtually and say, hey, do you have some time?
NICKELSBURG: Rainier thinks working in-person could solve that problem for some employees, though not for him since his boss will still be based in another state. But other employees have had strong negative reactions to the policy.
JOSEPH: It's like, why? All I need is an internet connection. I just don't get it.
NICKELSBURG: Joseph is one of them. He asked that we only use his middle name because he's afraid of professional repercussions for criticizing the company publicly. He says Amazon asked him to relocate to Seattle a few weeks ago to make it easier to comply with the new in-office policy. The movers had just arrived when we caught up at his new home.
JOSEPH: Sorry it's still a f***ing mess.
NICKELSBURG: That's all right. You're still moving in?
JOSEPH: Yeah, I'm getting there, but, you know, as you can see, I've still got the obligatory pile of cardboard in the corner (laughter).
NICKELSBURG: Joseph says he has autism and ADHD, and those conditions make it difficult to be in open-concept offices every day.
JOSEPH: I've developed coping mechanisms over the years, so it's not like I can't deal with social interaction. But five days a week, every week a year for the rest of your life, that's where it starts to be a problem.
NICKELSBURG: Joseph plans to apply for a disability accommodation to continue working from home a few days a week, but he's not sure he'll get it. If he doesn't, he says he might leave. And he's not alone. Several of the employees interviewed for this story said they're looking for new jobs. Stanford economist Nick Bloom is convinced that Amazon's real goal is to downsize its workforce, a layoff by attrition.
NICK BLOOM: Amazon hired very aggressively in 2021, '22 with the rebound from the pandemic and suddenly discovered they just had too many employees.
NICKELSBURG: Bloom says that when people quit, it can save the company money.
BLOOM: And so option one is to fire a bunch of folks, but you have to pay them severance pay. So option two, I think their view was, look, why don't we call everyone back to the office for five days a week? Probably about 10% of people won't like it - they live too far away. They'll quit on us, and that will save us a lot of money.
NICKELSBURG: Amazon says it's inaccurate to claim the return-to-office policy is a backdoor layoff. Amazon's CEO also denied it at a recent all-hands meeting in comments shared by the company's PR team. Regardless of the reason behind the move, Bloom will be watching to see how it influences other companies over the coming months.
BLOOM: Amazon are famous for being extremely well managed, very data-focused, very successful. So if they have a five-day return to office, it's very tempting for many other CEOs, execs to follow.
NICKELSBURG: Many Amazon employees, meanwhile, say they're watching to see how strictly the policy will be enforced.
For NPR News, I'm Monica Nickelsburg in Seattle.
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