Once more, companies want butts in seats — even though there's no legitimate business reason for many employees to return to the office.
A few weeks ago, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy announced that all corporate employees, including AWS staffers, will be expected to work in the office five days a week beginning in January. I don’t work for Amazon, but if I did, I’d quit. Period. End of statement.
I stopped working from offices decades ago, long before it was cool. I did it for two reasons. One, as I told my employer at the time, “If they really needed me in our New York City office, I could fly in the same day, but I doubted if they’d ever need me.” I was right. While I’ve been back to Manhattan many times for business, they’ve never needed me there. And, two, I’d be a lot more efficient working from my home office.
Guess what? I was, and I am.
Then along came COVID-19, and many other people found that they could be out of the office and get more and better work done from home.
Jassy in his letter, insisted, as is the wont of arrogant CEOs, that in-office work facilitates better teamwork, brainstorming, and innovation. Really? I found it only increased clique-building; allowed extroverts to claim credit for introverts, women, and minority groups’ work; and led to more middle-management yes-men.
When people work virtually, it’s the work that counts — not who they’re buddies with or whose rump they’re kissing.
Jassy thinks being physically present is crucial for learning, modeling, and reinforcing Amazon’s corporate culture. I hear that people in Amazon offices now Zoom from their cubicles instead of their homes. What a culture!
I also note The New York Times report that, according to an internal site for employees, Amazon will add 3,500 “phone booths” in offices to accommodate the additional in-house employees. Phone booths! Words fail me.
Jassy also thinks face-to-face interactions will make teaching and learning among colleagues more seamless. Millions of people who’ve learned their skills on YouTube would beg to disagree. Indeed, a 2018 Pew Research study found that 59% of Generation Z prefer to use YouTube to learn things.
Expanding on his rationale, Jassy said he wants Amazon to “operate like the world’s largest startup.” Please. Who does he think he’s fooling? It is one of the Magnificent Seven, with more than 1.5 million full- and part-time employees and revenue of not quite $148 billion in its last quarter.
Amazon can act no more like a start-up than it can a small business.
So, what is this really all about? People who should know say it’s not about reducing employee numbers, but at the highest levels, I wonder if that’s true.
For example, a survey by Blind revealed that about 73% of Amazon employees would consider finding another job because of the policy. Of course, they would. In the post-COVID era, many workers moved to new locations far away from AWS offices. There’s no way they’re going to move back to more expensive cities just to waste hours every day driving back and forth to work.
I’m also informed that, to paraphrase George Orwell, “all employees are equal, but some are more equal than others.” In other words, staffers with critical skills that aren’t easy to replace won’t be required to swipe their employee cards to keep their jobs.
I expect the top brass also won’t be expected to show up at the office at 9 a.m. every morning. Or, maybe they will. After all, if new Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol can report to the company’s Seattle headquarters three times a week using the corporate jet to fly to the office from his home in Newport Beach, CA, I’m sure Amazon’s lord high mucky-mucks can make it in as well.
AWS isn’t the only company that wants things to return to the good, old days when middle managers could justify their existence by watching who was spending too much time in the breakroom. A recent KPMG CEO survey found that almost 80% of CEOs believe their hybrid employees will be back in the office full-time by 2027. And at least, 86%, however, claim they’ll “reward” employees who come back to the office with promotions and raises.
I’ll believe that when I see it.
If I sound angry, it’s because I am. I believe in treating employees well. Study after study shows that people are happier and produce better work when they can choose where to work. Sure, some people do better working from the office — good for them. Trying to shove employees into cookie-cutter cubicles, though, is just bad business whether you’re a megacorp or a mom-and-pop business.
