Amazon Australia tells staff ‘come to the office if you want a promotion’

Amazon Australia has launched a crackdown on remote working telling employees to come to the office if they want a promotion.

Amazon Australia has launched a crackdown on remote working, telling its employees that they have to come to the office if they want a promotion.

The tech giant, which employs about 7000 people in Australia, told its office-based staff in February they would be expected to come into the office at least three days a week from May.

Now, in a further bid to get workers back to the office, they have barred employees who work from home more than twice days a week from promotion unless they have further leadership approval, theAFR reports.

“Promotions are one of the many ways we support employees’ growth and development, and there are a variety of factors we consider when determining an employee’s readiness for the next level,” Amazon spokeswoman Jess Makin said.

“Like any company, we expect employees who are being considered for promotion to be in compliance with company guidelines and policies.”

Amazon workers will not get promoted unless they go to the office three times a week. (Pixabay)

It is understood that the move has been rolled out globally, with US media outlets first to report the policy.

“Managers own the promotion process, which means it is their responsibility to support your growth through regular conversations and stretch assignments, and to complete all the required inputs for a promotion,” one post on Amazon’s internal website reads, according to US news organisation CNBC.

“If your role is expected to work from the office 3+ days a week and you are not in compliance, your manager will be made aware and VP approval will be required.”

Amid a downturn in the economy there are signs that many Australian companies are preparing to make redundancies in the next 12 months and office dodgers have been warned that their jobs may be a risk.

“[An employee] will say, ‘I’m as productive as X,’ and an employer will say, ‘yes, but X turns up. They’re part of the team. They’re collaborative, and contributing more because they’re in the office more often’,” Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox said on Thursday.

News of Amazon’s policy comes after a number of signs that work from home is dying in Australia.

Amazon Australia is the latest employer to take action against work from home bludgers. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

Earlier this week the Fair Work Commission found against Charles Gregory who said he should work at home all the time so he could care for his child every second week as part of a custody agreement.

But the FWC declared his employer Maxxia had “reasonable business grounds” to deny Mr Gregory’s request to never return to the office regularly.

Earlier this year, The FWC backed Insurance Australia Group – which trades under the names NRMA Insurance, CGU and Swann – after it dismissed an employee who was working from home.

Suzie Cheikho was fired for missing deadlines and meetings, being absent and uncontactable, and failing to complete a task which caused the industry regulator to fine IAG.

After a warning last year, IAG began to analyse the number of times she physically pressed her keyboard on 49 working days from October to December.

The review found she did not work her rostered hours for 44 days, started late on 47 days, finished early on 29 days and performed zero hours of work on 4 days.

She averaged 54 strokes per hour over the duration of her surveillance, which showed “she was not presenting for work and performing work as required”.

In a formal meeting about the review, Ms Cheikho said she did “not believe for a minute” the data was true, but showed no evidence that she’d been online and working when the report showed she hadn’t.

In a separate case, another boss monitored the call logs of his staff as he suspected they were “taking him for a ride”.

The director of a company – who can’t be named for legal reasons – knew something was wrong when contribution to work chats dwindled, email responses slowed and a growing number of calls went unanswered.

Calls also weren’t being logged on the company’s software.

Following further inquiries, he discovered that not only were calls not being logged, but many were found to be “ghost calls” – or fake entries.

Within 18 months, he fired three employees after tracking their call logs and determining they were doing insufficient work.

In a survey from September, 50 Australian CEOs said they expected white collar roles to be back at the office full time within three years.The KPMG CEO Outlook said work from home could vanish entirely by 2026. Three-quarters (75 per cent) of Australian CEOs said they will reward employees who make an extra effort to come into the office with raises, promotions and more interesting work, compared to 89 per cent of global CEOs.

In August, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank CEO Marnie Baker said the company would be pushing staff to come back into the office or branch more often.

But she said it wasn’t about productivity and she had no “doubt that you can be productive” from home.

“It is as important the relationships that we have with each other, and I know because I see it, and I see it playing out when people are together in the office, the energy levels, the interaction, the innovation – that’s something that you will not get when you’re sitting at home by yourself, that innovative thinking.”