Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has announced plans for a full return to the office starting in early 2025. For the past 15 months, employees have been required to work in the office three days a week.
However, in a new memo released, employees will be expected to be in the office five days a week, with remote work allowed only in exceptional cases.
In the memo, Jassy noted that Amazon’s culture has been key to the company’s success over the past 29 years. But maintaining that culture requires ongoing effort, especially as it continues to grow. He further noted that the advantages of employees being together in the office are significant. From his observation, it’s easier for teammates to learn, model, practice, and which strengthens the company’s culture.
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Part of the Memo reads,
“Hey, team. I wanted to send a note on a couple of changes we’re making to further strengthen our culture and teams. First, for perspective, I feel good about the progress we’re making together. Stores, AWS, and Advertising continue to grow on very large bases, Prime Video continues to expand, and new investment areas like GenAl, Kuiper, Healthcare, and several others are evolving nicely. And at the same time we’re growing and inventing, we’re also continuing to make progress on our cost structure and operating margins, which isn’t easy to do. Overall, I like the direction in which we’re heading and appreciate the hard work and ingenuity of our teams globally. We want to operate like the world’s largest startup.
“That means having a passion for constantly inventing for customers, strong urgency (for most big opportunities, it’s a race!), high ownership, fast decision-making, scrappiness and frugality, deeply connected collaboration you need to be joined at the hip with your teammates when inventing and solving hard problems), and a shared commitment to each other. To address the second issue of being better set up to invent, collaborate, and be connected enough to each other and our culture to deliver the absolute best for customers and the business, we’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID.
“When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant. I’ve previously explained these benefits (February 2023 post), but in summary, we’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and teams tend to be better connected. If anything, the last 15 months we’ve been back in the office at least three days a week has strengthened our conviction about the benefits”.
Aside from Amazon mandating the full return of employees, another key change the company is making is Flattening its organizational structure. The company is reducing the number of managers by increasing the ratio of individual contributors to managers by 15% by the end of Q1 2025. This according to the CEO will streamline decision-making, reduce bureaucracy, and drive faster, more effective customer solutions. Amazon in August 2024 announced financial results for its second quarter ended June 30, 2024. Net sales increased 10% to $148.0 billion in the second quarter, compared with $134.4 billion in second quarter 2023.