Amazon asks employees to return to office three days a week

San Francisco, Feb 18

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has asked employees to return to office, starting with three days per week from May 1.

Earlier, it was up to individual teams at the company to decide who will come to office.

Jassy acknowledged that some roles will be exceptions to the new policy, like some salespeople and customer support, but "that will be a small minority."

He also admitted it is not simple to bring thousands of employees back to Amazon offices around the world.

"We are going to give the teams that need to do that work some time to develop a plan. We know that it won't be perfect at first, but the office experience will steadily improve over the coming months (and years)," he said in an email to employees.

"I know people will have questions about how this change will be implemented. We'll be finalising those details in the coming weeks," Jassy added.

It has been three years since the pandemic that Amazon recommended that all its employees "who were able to work from home do so".

The company subsequently updated guidance a few times, with the last guidance (in the second half of 2021) being that Director-level leaders would decide for their teams where they would work.

"It's easier to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture when we're in the office together most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues. It's especially true for new people (and we've hired a lot of people in the pandemic); but it's also true for people of all tenures at Amazon," said Jassy.

Teams tend to be better connected to one another when they see each other in person more frequently, according to him.

"I'm also optimistic that this shift will provide a boost for the thousands of businesses located around our urban headquarter locations and the dozens of cities around the world where our employees go to the office," Jassy noted.