Amazon CEO Andy Jassy reveals why he is cutting off middle managers while enforcing RTO

This is not the first time Andy Jassy has spoken out about putting more power in the hands of Amazon employees doing the work instead of those with sign-off powers.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has said that he wants to cut off middle managers in the company because they want to “put their fingerprint on everything” but don't always make the right recommendations. In a recent interview, Jassy added that he’s flattening the hierarchy and giving more power to individual contributors as the tech giant focuses on getting employees back to work from the office.

“You add a lot of people, and you end up with a lot of middle managers. And those middle managers, all well-intended, want to put their fingerprint on everything,” the CEO told Bloomberg. "So you end up with these people being in the pre-meeting, for the pre-meeting, for the pre-meeting, for the decision meeting, and not always making recommendations and owning things the way we want that type of ownership.”

This, however, is not the first time Jassy has spoken out about putting more power in the hands of employees doing the work instead of those with sign-off powers. But his recent comments indicated that the $2.3 trillion tech giant is well ahead of its schedule. Last September, the Amazon veteran declared he wanted to “increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15 percent by the end of Q1 2025.”

In his note, Jassy cited “pre-meetings for the pre-meetings for the decision meetings, a longer line of managers feeling like they need to review a topic before it moves forward, owners of initiatives feeling less like they should make recommendations because the decision will be made elsewhere.” He also introduced a 'bureaucracy tipline', allowing employees to report unnecessary procedures or inefficiencies.

Amazon has already beat that marker, freeing up mobility and putting more onus on individual employees.

“It’s going to allow us, for the people that are doing the work, they’re gonna have more ownership and they’re going to be able to move more quickly,” Jassy said.