Will Amazon require remote workers to return to office? What CEO said

Andy Jassy, CEO, Amazon (Reuters file image)

Amazon is likely to continue a flexible approach towards work-from-home, the e-retailer's Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy indicated at a conference held earlier this week, CNBC reported.

Jassy said at Wednesday's Code Conference in Los Angeles that the company had no plans to mandate that corporate staff members working from home come back to office.

“We don’t have a plan to require people to come back,” Jassy  said. “We don’t right now. But we’re going to proceed adaptively as we learn.”

But he acknowledged that some jobs needed more office time than others. Those who are part creative and hardware teams need to work from office more often while engineers mostly work from home, he added.

The Amazon boss said tasks like inventing were tougher to accomplish in remote set-ups.

The e-retailer had announced in October last year that amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it will allow its tech and corporate employees to indefinitely work remotely, given they can come to office when required.

At the same time, it said team managers will have the authority to decide at what times employees should work from office

“We expect that there will be teams that continue working mostly remotely, others that will work some combination of remotely and in the office, and still others that will decide customers are best served having the team work mostly in the office,” Jassy had written in a memo, according to Reuters.

"There is no one-size-fits all approach for how every team works best," he added, according to CNN.

The announcement marked a departure from the company's previous stance of expecting most employees to work from office at least three days a week.

Among big tech companies, Google and Apple have asked employees to work from office on at least some days of the week.

(With inputs from Reuters)