Amazon boss makes big WFH call

The boss of Amazon has made a major announcement to staff about working from home, as he moves to “remove layers” from the business.

Tech giant Amazon has told its staff the working from home era is over, with the company’s boss bringing in a compulsory move back to the office five days a week to “strengthen our culture and teams”.

In a note to Amazon employees, chief executive Andy Jassy said all corporate staff would need to come back be into the office permanently from January.

It comes as Australian companies grapple with the future of staff working from home, which became widespread during the pandemic due to Covid restrictions on social distancing.

Commonwealth Bank faced an internal revolt last year when its 49,000 staff were ordered to come back into the office just 50 per cent of the time.

The Amazon boss also revealed the company was planning to “remove layers” from the organisation by having fewer managers in place by the end of quarter one in the 2025 financial year.

“We want to operate like the world’s largest startup,” he wrote in a lengthy note.

Mr Jassy told staff he had created a ‘Bureaucracy Mailbox’, where he suggested they send any examples of “unnecessary process that’s crept in and we can root out”.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has overseen significant streamlining at the company. Picture: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images/AFP

He also said Amazon leadership had “decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID”, but stressed that there would still be some flexibility.

“Before the pandemic, not everybody was in the office five days a week, every week,” Mr Jassy wrote.

“If you or your child were sick, if you had some sort of house emergency, if you were on the road seeing customers or partners, if you needed a day or two to finish coding in a more isolated environment, people worked remotely.

“This was understood, and will be moving forward as well.”

He continued to say it was expected staff would be in the office “outside of extenuating circumstances”, like those he mentioned above.

“We understand that some of our teammates may have set up their personal lives in such a way that returning to the office consistently five days per week will require some adjustments,” Mr Jassy wrote.

“To help ensure a smooth transition, we’re going to make this new expectation active on January 2, 2025.”

Amazon posted huge numbers in its latest financial reporting. Picture: Ina Fassbender/AFP

Australian workers have previously been warned that the time of employees having a lot of the bargaining power is coming to an end, with workplaces already starting to see a big shift in favour of employers.

The 2024 Employment and Salary Trends Report from people2people Recruitment found the worsening cost-of-living crisis and a growing fear of job cuts is behind the power shift, with workers now looking to retain their jobs rather than risk trying to find new work.

In a recent survey, news.com.au asked Aussies whether they thought those who work from home should be paid less than in-office workers doing the same role.

While the majority of the more than 13,200 respondents were against the idea, a surprising amount thought the suggestion was reasonable.

Just over 60 per cent of respondents believed that pay should be based on the work and performance of the employee, not the location where the work is being done.

However, 37 per cent, or around 4900 people, thought the idea of paying remote workers less was a good one and that people should be rewarded for going into the office.

Mr Jassy has overseen a significant overhaul of staffing and cost measures since taking the reigns from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2021.

Amazon’s staff headcount totalled 1.53 million people in the second quarter of the US financial year, representing growth of just 5 per cent from a year earlier, CNBC reports.

By comparison, its workforce had expanded 14 per cent to 1.52 million employees in the second quarter of 2022.

According to its most recent financial report, Amazon’s net sales increased 10 per cent to $148 billion in the second quarter of this year compared to last.

Its net income also ballooned to $13.5 billion, up from $6.7 billion at the same time in 2023, and its operating cash flow was up 75 per cent to $108 billion.

Originally published as Amazon boss makes big WFH call