Most Amazon workers around the world have returned to work full-time, but for some who work for the tech giant and online retailer, it's not a welcome change.
“People on my team are very concerned about this,” said CJ Felli, a systems development engineer at Seattle-based Amazon Web Services.
Amazon's corporate employees have been working mostly remotely during the Covid-19 pandemic. From 2023, they could work in a hybrid mode – two days remotely and three days in the office.
From January 2, the requirement to be in the office changed to five days a week.
– wrote Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in a letter to employees in September that the company would “return to working in the office it was in before Covid occurred.”
Employees concerned about lack of data
“We've been told this leads to increased collaboration between teams and innovation,” Felli told CBC News. “But whenever we ask for data, which is Amazon's bread and butter, they are never willing to share it.”
Felli spoke out against the latest return-to-work order, along with 523 other Amazon employees who wrote a letter to Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman expressing “dismay” at the “data-driven explanation” for the five-day term and in the letter outlined the benefits from remote work.
Felli believes that employees are happier and more productive when working from home, and she would like to maintain that flexibility.
“I do most of my work from home and I find that breaking the monotony personally helps me a lot,” he said.
What employees want
As of May 2024, approximately 18.7 per cent of employed Canadians worked primarily from home Statistics Canada. This is about six percent less than in May 2021, but still more than double the pre-pandemic level.
According to A. A flexible workplace is a great attraction for employees workplace trends report from the global employment agency Robert Half.
About 40 percent of employees surveyed said they preferred hybrid work, spending two to three days a week in the office. Employers surveyed said they would prefer their teams to be in the office four days a week.
“This dance between employee and employer suggests that we are still on the way to refining the mix,” said David King, senior managing director at Robert Half in Toronto.
Conducted in June 2024, the online survey included responses from 1,800 hiring managers and more than 1,750 employees in the finance and accounting, technology, marketing, legal, government, customer service and human resources industries in Canada.
Hybrid work is still a priority for some companies, with 37 percent of surveyed managers offering hybrid work specifically to attract skilled talent.
According to the job website Indeed, the percentage of job postings in Canada mentioning remote/hybrid work has remained steady over the past two years.
“Anything that allows for full employee engagement has an advantage. Today it seems to be a hybrid form,” King said.
Tug of war in the workplace
Amazon is one of the biggest companies returning to entirely in-person work, but there are others making similar moves.
In September, Dell asked its global sales team to come into the office five days a week to provide customers with the “best innovation, value and service,” according to a statement emailed to CBC News.
AT&T started the new year by eliminating hybrid work and requiring staff to work on-site.
Employees at Calgary fintech Gigadat have been returning to the office five days a week for several years.
“We were probably one of the first companies to get employees back to work,” said Cliff Nywening, Gigadat's chief operating officer, explaining that the main motivators were improving employee mental health and increasing productivity.
“The opportunity to have a spontaneous meeting simply has enormous added value,” he said.
At the beginning of the pandemic, Gigadat's over 100-person staff could work remotely and then hybridly, but the company quickly returned to fully stationary work.
“Even if you have someone who is maybe working from home, that person is disconnected from conversations when you're all over the conference room,” Nywening said. “And that face-to-face meeting is extremely important.”
However, he admits it wasn't an easy decision to get everyone back and wonders if they may have lost some employees as a result.
Challenges facing Amazon
But he's glad his company made the decision early and sees the challenge facing Amazon.
“The longer you have experience with hybrid remote work, the more difficult it will be for you to return to, you know, a normal office work experience,” Nywening said.
Felli, the Amazon employee, still believes the future is hybrid and hopes his employer will change course.
“Our bread and butter is selling products to people remotely and selling products to people who want to work remotely. So if we can’t provide remote work, what are we selling?” Felli asked.
“It's kind of a catalyst that encourages me to leave.”