Angry Amazon employees are ‘frenziedly applying’ for new jobs after Andy Jassy’s RTO assignment
Laura was working at home when her husband sent her a link to the news: Amazon requires employees to return to the office 5 days a week. This is the first time the mother goes to work together Amazon for more than four years, she learned that she would need an additional four hours on her weekly commute.
“At first, I didn’t believe it,” she said. Luck. “After all, who would expect to receive career-changing news from a newspaper article instead of your employer.”
“Honestly, it’s a pretty terrible way to learn about something that’s going to have a big impact on your life. I really wanted a personal communication from my manager, but that didn’t happen for a few days.”
Laura said she was hired virtually during the pandemic with the understanding that there was no expectation of returning to Amazon’s offices.
That was until 2023 when CEO Andy Jassy announced that he wanted workers “go back to the office together most of the time”—at least, three days a week.
“The RTO’s initial decision was a hard pill to swallow, but the latest order is impossible to implement,” she said.
After the initial shock of the news passed, Laura says a feeling of calm and clarity prevailed: “My months of struggling to make ends meet three days a week were over and I knew that my time was over. in the Amazon is coming to an end.”
Even if she could commit to the office full-time, Laura says she would still forgo the opportunity to work remotely and switch Amazon jobs.
“Frankly, at this point, I have lost a lot of trust in Amazon’s leadership,” she added. “I am updating my resume and portfolio, and am urgently applying for new jobs on LinkedIn.”
Laura isn’t alone: Some Amazon employees say Luck that they were so frustrated with the tech giant’s war on working from home that they were officially looking for work.
The two said they learned the news—and its significance—through the media, not through the manger.
One person said they sent out a notice. Another said they received two interview invitations within 48 hours of the RTO’s announcement.
Amazon did not respond luck request comment.
Is the 5-day mission a “negotiation game”?
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has repeatedly warned remote workers that “will not be successful” for them at the company.
Even so, it’s clear that some Amazon employees (and managers) have been ignoring these guidelines to date.
Experts have previously said Luck that Amazon’s five-day mandate was a “bargaining game” to get employees into the office for the three days they originally requested.
“I didn’t comply,” Ben, who lives three hours from Amazon’s offices, commented on the previous matching policy.
He briefly considered moving before thinking again: “I decided not to make life choices because Amazon could fire me at will anyway and I didn’t want to make permanent changes in life because some manager decided that I should start going to the office when I was hired virtually and promised that I could work wherever I wanted.”
Some managers are still ensuring their new hires can work from home after the three-day period takes effect.
An employee said Luck that he was hired remotely in May 2023—a month after the company announced its initial RTO policy.
Luca, a millennial analyst, complained: “I left a decent company near where I live to work at Amazon because it is working from home. “For me, it’s not that I don’t want to go to the office, there’s no office near me.”
He said his manager covered up his absence from any office, but that would no longer work.
“He told me he wouldn’t be able to help, they also forced him to go into the office,” Luca said, adding that he couldn’t get a definite answer about whether whether he was asked to come to the office or not. promised otherwise in the interview room.
“I liked my job at Amazon, but I needed a solid foundation to stand on and they didn’t provide that.”
Whether Jassy’s latest move is to force employees to show up more often or not, the workers still have until January 2, 2025 (the date he asked them to relocate if necessary) to Call him a fraud — or quit.
Most people Luck said that Amazon is secretly hoping for the latter anyway.
Thinly veiled headcount reduction
While Jassy positions Amazon’s changes – including flat hierarchies and no more hot desks – as a better way to work, disgruntled employees remain adamant that it’s a The staff cuts were thinly concealed.
“It was a robbery by Peter to pay Paul the short-term benefits of voluntary layoffs in exchange for the loss of top talent and reduced productivity for years to come,” said Gen X program director Jared.
Even though he’s only been working at Amazon for six months, he’s already changed his LinkedIn status to #opentowork, reached out to former colleagues, and updated his resume in hopes of finding a flexible job. more active before January 2.
“The new policy is less flexible than pre-COVID and doesn’t respect employees’ health care, family, or work-life balance needs,” Jared scoffed. “I won’t go back.”
While he adhered to the three-day policy, he refused to go back to cubicle work five days a week when Amazon’s competitors were still offering some form of work from home—and he thought many others will do the same.
“As a top performer with previous MAANG (Meta, AppleAmazon, Netflixand Google) in this tight market, I believe it will be fairly easy to find a new role that is at least hybrid,” Jared adds.
“One of my colleagues made the announcement on Monday. I hope others will follow suit.”
He’s not wrong. Rumors of a stricter RTO were reason enough to inspire Ben to quit—he was “voluntarily terminated” two months ago and has now started his own company.
Likewise, Lisa, a marketing leader in Europe, finished her four-year stint at Amazon. After hearing about Jassy’s announcement on the news, the woman in her 40s said she immediately started contacting recruiters.
“This new mandate goes against a lot of the leadership principles we hold dear,” she said, adding that she has been “the highest rated employee every year” for her work at home.
Lisa added: “I was consistently completing this business and their reward was to have me come back to the office where I would sit at my desk writing documents or making calls. “I don’t want to work for a business that clearly has so little respect for me.”
Every job Lisa applied for offered hybrid work, and she was confident she would find a more flexible employer before the New Year.
Within 48 hours of Amazon’s new policy being announced, she landed two job interviews.
“I will always work hard, but now I want to work for a company that also works hard for me.”
Interviewee names have been changed for anonymity.
