The Amazon Spheres, part of the Amazon headquarters campus, right, in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle, Washington, U.S., on Sunday, Oct. 24, 2021.
Chona Kasinger | Bloomberg | Getty Images
A group of Amazon employees is urging CEO Andy Jassy to reconsider a recent return-to-office mandate.
Last week, Jassy announced Amazon would require corporate staffers to spent at least three days a week in the office beginning May 1. Amazon is rolling back its pandemic-era flexibility toward remote work after Jassy and Amazon’s leadership team, known as the S-team, determined it would be easier for employees to collaborate and invent together in person, while also strengthening the company’s culture.
The move marks a shift from Amazon’s prior policy, last updated in October 2021, which left it up to managers to decide how frequently their teams needed to be in the office. Since then, there’s been a mix of fully remote and hybrid work among Amazon’s white-collar workforce.
Staffers on Friday created a Slack channel to advocate for remote work and share their concerns about the new return to work policy, according to screenshots viewed by CNBC. Almost 14,000 employees had joined the Slack channel as of Tuesday morning.
The employees have also drafted a petition, addressed to Jassy and the S-team, that calls for leadership to drop the new policy, saying it “runs contrary” to Amazon’s positions on diversity and inclusion, affordable housing, sustainability, and focus on being the “Earth’s Best Employer.”
“We, the undersigned, call for Amazon to protect its role and status as a global retail and tech leader by immediately cancelling the RTO policy and issuing a new policy that allows employees to work remotely or more flexibly, if they choose to do so, as their team and job role permits,” according to a draft of the petition, which was previously reported by Business Insider.
An Amazon spokesperson pointed back to Jassy’s blog post about return-to-office guidance.
The…
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