Amazon and its cloud business, Amazon Web Services (AWS), are not mincing words or backtracking on their controversial 5-day-a-week return-to-office mandate. Reuters reports that AWS CEO Matt Garman said at an all-hands meeting last week that “those who do not support it can leave for another company.”
He added, “Those who do not wish to work for Amazon in-office five days per week can quit.”
Garman justified his belief in the all-hands by adding, “By the way, I don’t mean that in a bad way. We want to be in an environment where we’re working together.”
“When we want to really, really innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we’re not in person,” said Garman.
“Those who do not wish to work for Amazon in-office five days per week can quit”
Matt Garman, AWS CEO
Garman added nine out of 10 workers he has spoken to support the new RTO policy. Garman didn’t provide details on that statistic, such as the number of employees or diversity in roles.
Garman’s numbers don’t add up
The sentiment and percentages don’t align with prior anonymous reports from Amazon employees on Blind.
Within days of Amazon CEO Andy Jassy’s September RTO announcement, over 2,500 employees responded with overwhelmingly negative feedback. Ninety-one percent of employees were unhappy with the RTO mandate, and 73% expressed a desire to quit and work elsewhere.
Blind is a platform that allows registered users to discuss and rate companies anonymously. Blind enforces corporate email verification to register and associate yourself with the company. While former employees could technically respond to the poll, it would require continued access to their corporate Amazon email account, which is highly unlikely.
Amazon isn’t backtracking on remote work
If there was any doubt that the overwhelmingly negative feedback from Amazon employees (of Amazon or its subsidiary AWS) would force Jassy or Garman to reconsider, it’s clear now there won’t be any backtracking.
Garman’s brash reaction speaks volumes about the greater Amazon organization’s doubling down and its belief that physical office presence trumps everything.
Garman acknowledges the “silent layoff,” as some characterize mandatory RTO policies like Amazon’s. When deciding to announce its new policy, Amazon undoubtedly realized thousands of employees would not commit to full 5-day-a-week return to office commuting and would quit.
Now, Garman is encouraging them to do just that.
Amazon to layoff 14,000 managers in 2025
The attrition caused by RTO isn’t the only way Amazon is reducing headcount, either. According to a Morgan Stanley and Bloomberg report, Amazon announced it would eliminate 14,000 management positions by early 2025 and save $3 billion annually.
Morgan Stanley stated that the reduced management layers would help speed up business processes, flatten layers, and reduce expenses.
Fully remote work may be a dying perk, but hybrid work is still permitted to the delight of many other Silicon Valley tech employees such as Meta and Google.
Maybe someone should remind Jassy and Garman October is World Mental Health Month. They must not have got the memo.
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