As Amazon tells staff to return to office, new survey says hybrid workers aren't working

From January 2025, Amazon wants its workers back in the office five days a week.

In early 2023, the company's CEO Andy Jassy reconsidered Amazon’s remote-first pandemic stance, stating “we should go back to being in the office together the majority of the time (at least three days per week).”

Now, Jassy has released a new memo where he outlines that things are changing once again. "We’ve decided that we’re going to return to being in the office the way we were before the onset of Covid," he wrote.

“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 to one another.”

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Last year’s call back to the office has influenced this new move. “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,” Jassy said.

Amazon is not the only major company that is requiring its employees to return to the office full-time, with JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs implementing full return-to-office mandates too.

Other companies are trying different tactics to incentivize workers. Dell, for example, has told remote employees that they will no longer be considered for promotions. If staff want to be promoted, then they’ll need to work at their nearest “approved office” at least three days each week.

Remote work makes workers happy

Critics of RTO mandates point out that remote work can be directly linked to employee wellbeing. A 2022 study from Tracking Happiness found that the ability to work remotely increases employee happiness by as much as 20%.

Academic research papers haven’t found the benefits either, with a study from the University of Pittsburgh finding that being back at the office is no better for productivity, which is often used as the biggest lever to get workers to return.

The study’s lead, Mark Ma, an associate professor of business administration from Pitt's Katz Graduate School of Business has said that, “our results actually do not support these arguments”.

More recently, a survey from Great Place to Work found that “mandates — whether for a return to the office, remote work, or a hybrid format — pose risks for employee retention, productivity, and more”.

So why are companies insisting on workers being back at their desks as they were in 2019?

JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon has said, for example, that there are “serious weaknesses” with virtual work, including slowed decision-making and a lack of “spontaneous learning and creativity”.

Slacking on the job

Bolstering the opinions of those C-suite execs who want to see boots on the ground is a new piece of research which has found that hybrid or remote working options are allowing people to slack on the job.

Hybrid employees often praise the flexibility that working from home offers, from being able to pick the kids up from school or daycare, to doing laundry in between meetings. The survey, however, has found that some home workers aren’t giving their all to their jobs.

Nearly half (46 per cent) say they multitask on work calls. Online shopping, social media and cleaning were the main culprits.

The same number said they complete house chores during their working hours. Twenty per cent reported taking naps, 17 percent confessed to watching TV or playing video games, with the same amount revealing that they worked from a different location without telling anyone.

Additionally, for younger workers, remote or hybrid working has left them confused about blurred boundaries between sick time, vacation, and mental health days.

Ultimately though, the act of being in the office simply doesn’t guarantee productivity.

Workplace trends like coffee badging (popping in to swipe your card, have a quick check-in with your team, before going home) and office peacocking (performing your job so you look super-busy) are just as likely to waste workers’ time and diminish their productivity.

What being in the office does guarantee workers is something very important: visibility.

Proximity bias, aka an unconscious tendency where management tends to favor those who they can literally see, is a real phenomenon. If you’re out of sight, you can be out of mind for your boss, and you won’t get access to prime projects, not to mention promotions.

Remote or hybrid work suits many workers well, including women, parents and those with particular needs, such as those with disabilities that may make commuting hard and stressful.

So, if you feel that you are being penalized for wanting to continue working remotely, yet your leadership is insisting on a full return, one solution can be to look for a new role at a company where your requirements will be taken into full consideration.

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