Amazon employees slam CEO Andy Jassy's return to office mandate: 'It's just going backwards'

Amazon employees are required to work from the office five days a week starting January 2, 2025, CEO Andy Jassy announced on Monday. (Image credit: AFP)

After Amazon CEO Andy Jassy decided to end their hybrid work policy and demanded that employees work in the office five days a week, the tech giant's employees have been blasting the move on an internal Slack channel, Business Insider reported.

One of the employees called the mandate "significantly more strict and out of its mind". Speaking to the publication, the employee said, "Please do note that this is (in a lot of cases) significantly more strict and out of its mind than many teams operated under pre-Covid. This is not 'going back' to how it was before. It's just going backwards."

They were referring to Jassy's memo in which he wrote that things in Amazon was going to return to being how they were before the pandemic. "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," the CEO wrote. "When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant."

But, several employees did not share Jassy's sentiments.

"Can I negotiate my manager to PIP me," Business Insider quoted an employee commenting on Slack in reference to Amazon's famously ruthless performance improvement plan. "Take my money and leave?"

Referring to one of the tech giant's famous leadership principles, another employee said, "Whatever happened to 'Striving to be Earth's Best Employer?"

Some also commented on Jassy's leadership skills.

"It's day 1169," the publication quoted an employee writing on Monday, referring to the number of days since Jassy became CEO on July 5, 2021. It refers to founder Jeff Bezos's philosophy that it's "always Day 1 at Amazon," meaning the company should always be "curious, nimble, and experimental" while Day 2 mentality was described as "stasis," "irrelevance," and "excruciating, painful decline."

According to the memo, Amazon employees--except those who have emergencies at home and those whose Remote Work Exception has been approved through their s-team leader--will have to work from the office five days a week starting January 2, 2025.