Amazon Calls Office Workers Back 3 Days a Week in September
By Celia Young June 10, 2021 5:35 pm
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Amazon (AMZN) is calling its corporate employees back to the office for at least three days a week, starting the week of Sept. 7, relaxing its March guidance to office workers.
In March, the company struck a stronger stance in terms of in-person work, describing an office-centric culture.
“Our plan is to return to an office-centric culture as our baseline,” reads the March blog post announcement. “We believe it enables us to invent, collaborate, and learn together most effectively.”
But the e-commerce giant relaxed its guidelines in an email to employees on Thursday, Bloomberg reported. Corporate employees have the option of working remotely up to four weeks a year, so long as they work from within the U.S. Workers can apply for exemptions from an in-person return.
The specific days a person works are up to their leadership team, and if a person applies and gets an exemption from in-person work, they will not have a dedicated work space at the office, according to Amazon’s Thursday blog post.
“Our thinking is predicated on what we believe will be most beneficial for customers, while also trying to give employees more flexibility in their work environment and lives,” reads the post. “For employees who were mostly remote pre-COVID, such as some Sales and Customer Service roles, they will remain working remote. For employees in roles which require onsite work, such as hardware engineers and frontline operations, these individuals will continue to work onsite.”
When asked if vaccinations were a requirement for a return to in-person work, a representative from the company said it strongly encourages Amazon employees and contractors to be vaccinated as soon as COVID-19 vaccines are available.
Other tech companies, like Twitter and Slack, have scrapped a full return to the office, reported The Washington Post. Meanwhile, Google (GOOGL) and Apple (AAPL) will allow two work-from-home days each week.
