Amazon has reportedly started tracking the hours corporate workers spend in the office.
Business Insider reports the move is to combat the rise of "coffee badging", the purported trend of employees badging into the office, getting coffee and then leaving shortly after to circumvent Amazon's Return To Office (RTO) mandate.
Business Insider, which cited sources close to the matter as well as several screenshots of internal Slack messages that the publication had seen, stated that multiple Amazon teams, including the cloud computing and retail arms, were told that a minimum of two hours per visit is required to be deemed as formal office attendance. Some teams were told to stay at least six hours per visit.
Amazon's return-to-office mandate, requiring employees to work in the office three days a week, was announced in February 2023 and implemented in May of the same year. However, it hasn't entailed a minimum hour obligation until now.
"Over a year ago, we asked employees to start coming into the office three or more days per week because we believe it would yield the best long-term results for our customers, business, and culture. And it has," Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan told Business Insider.
The vast majority of employees are in the office more frequently, there's more energy, connection, and collaboration, and we're hearing that from employees and the businesses that surround our offices. Now that it's been more than a year, we're starting to speak directly with employees who haven't regularly been spending meaningful amounts of time in the office to ensure they understand the importance of spending quality time with their colleagues."
The Slack screenshots Business Insider obtained reportedly illustrated Amazon employees' exasperation about the policy, especially around Amazon's capacity to meaningfully measure the work performed during the hours checked in. Some workers expressed uncertainty about the feasibility of tracking hours or the legality of such measures, while one employee raised the question of whether spending two hours at lunch while badged in could be considered a workday.
There was also reportedly criticism of Amazon's intent and transparency, as the company had not made any formal announcement or offered an explanation. One employee allegedly said that workers would act like high school students "if you treat employees like high school students".
The Amazon RTO Story So Far
The introduction of Amazon's policy led to significant backlash in May 2023, with hundreds of Amazon workers in Seattle protesting outside the company’s headquarters and thousands signing a petition opposing the mandate. Prior to this, Amazon had allowed team leaders to determine their own return-to-office strategies.
At the time of the mandate's announcement, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy explained that the decision was based on an evaluation of what did and didn’t work during the pandemic. Jassy stated that the senior leadership team observed employee performance and collaboration and consulted with other business leaders, ultimately concluding that employees were generally more engaged when working in person.
