AWS CEO Matt Garman has sent a stern message to employees disgruntled by the company’s five-day in-office mandate.
During an all-hands meeting at Amazon’s base in Virginia, Garman showed the exit door to all staffers who stood against the policy.
According to the meeting transcript, verified by CNBC, the CEO said:
If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s okay; there are other companies around.
“At Amazon, we want to be in an environment where we are working together, and we feel that [a] collaborative environment is incredibly important for our innovation and for our culture.”
Amazon’s mandate received backlash from employees when released last month. Indeed, Fortune reported that 73 percent considered quitting in response.
Meanwhile, many protested online that they’re just as productive at home as in the office and noted how the mandate will hinder their ability to care for their families.
All this highlights the massive morale hit Amazon has taken, which Garman’s comments are unlikely to have helped.
Worse still, the policy doesn’t come into effect until January 2, 2025, which perhaps offers time for resentment to build and recruiters to poach from its talent pool.
Yet, the company must have known that the announcement would never go down well. After all, approximately 37,000 employees reportedly joined an internal Slack channel last year to advocate for remote work and share objections to the previous three-day in-office policy.
Nevertheless, Garman remained defiant, telling everyone at the meeting that “nine out of ten people are actually quite excited by this change.”
He also notes that there will be individual cases where some employees may have a little more flexibility in their schedules.
For instance, if an employee has their manager’s approval to work from home and make the most of the quiet environment, they can do so.
While that could also pose problems from a fairness perspective, Garman noted that the prerogative for Amazon is establishing an office environment that preserves its culture and “leadership principles”.
Amazon has many of these principles, with one being: “Disagree and commit.” The CEO shared how the in-office environment could help protect this.
In doing so, Garman highlighted how difficult it is to respectively push back on ideas over Chime, Amazon’s video conferencing software. He stated:
I don’t know if you guys have tried to disagree via a Chime call; it’s very hard!
The CEO of Chime rival Zoom, Eric Yuan, may disagree with such assertations. He recently told UC Today about his desire to optimize the modern hybrid work environment with AI to pave the way for employees to better focus on the work that matters most.
Additionally, he noted how AI could soon free up enough time to enable a four-day workweek.
However, such optimism toward reinventing old work patterns goes against the grain.
In July, Salesforce instituted a four to five-day return-to-office mandate. Meanwhile, X was far less apologetic in demanding employees go into the office on a full-time basis.
As AWS follows X’s path, will this move make any difference in its bid to keep pace with Microsoft and Google in developing its cloud and AI technologies?
Given the extent of the employee pushback, AWS will certainly hope so.
