Amazon CEO warns employees: it's "not going to work out for you" if you don't want to...

[dangh]

Employer says you must be in the office.
Employee says I can work from home.
Employer says YOU'RE FIRED!
End of discussion.
YOU work for the employer, not the other way around.
Don't like it, QUIT!

Remember: Employer first said: "We changing policy so you can work from home permanently".
Then they changed their mind.
And no worries, people will quit and find easily other job. This do not mean such behaviour and constant policy change should not be highlighted. It is better for people joining the job market to learn which employers are keeping their words and which are going to treat you as expendable head count. Just from this point of view article like this one are very valuable lessons.

And... if you really think that 'you work for your employer, not the other way around' it means you're really have no idea about team work. If there is no bidirectional communication, if the employer do not treat people like people, if the employer only forcing ideas on others this is not a well managed company. Sure, it can make money - same as Chinese sweat factories makes money - but again, it is not well managed and healthy organization. Then again, I'm sure most CEO's wet dreams are Chinese sweat shops - dirty cheap expandable human resources available 24/7, no rights, no unions, no insurance, no overtime pays, minimum wage and constantly tracked and fully micromanaged...

 

[maxxcool7421]

A sI said there are many people out of work and most of those would be willing to fill the positions left behind by the slackers.

Not any more .. hahahahahahaha .. with so many people retired during lockdowns because they were forced to retire, and the SUPER low birth rates as compared to the previous generation it will NOT be easy to fill their roles. so much so that unemployment is the lowest it has been in decades.

right not as long as all the grunts co-ordinate efforts .. the workers have the power right now ..

as for amazon, eff those guys they are scum bags, and they treat their employees like diapers .. don't even pay completive wages

 

[LetTheWookieWin]

This whole issue of productivity needs to be reframed not as a remote work vs in-person problem, but as a performance management problem.

I’ve worked both as a full-time in-office worker and a full-time remote worker. In both cases I’ve seen too many managers without the stones to hold individuals accountable much less terminate a poor performer. Remote or in-person, most people will quickly alter their behaviors if there are tangible consequences.

I’ve always treated remote work as a privilege that has to be continually earned. As a manager, don’t punish those of us who make it work and excel at it because you’re unwilling to have a hard conversation and occasionally take out the trash.

 

[waclark]

That sounds illegal. Grow a pair and fire them properly.

It's not illegal in most US states, perhaps all of them. At least with voluntary resignation, you are not being fired. You made a choice; the job requires in-office time.

 

[McMurdeR]

There's so much more to this argument than anecdotes or platitudes about in-person relationships.

All I know is that remote working worked very well for me and my team. The fact that we already had established productivity management and remote collaboration tools - and used them well - meant that we hit the ground running when the pandemic came. You can make a good case for any arrangement if you can present unequivocal evidence of how much you're producing. In the same vain, it's not difficult for an employee to blag their way through the day, regardless of where they're sitting, if no one's tracking what they're doing.

So my view is that issues with remote working are managerial issues more than employee issues. Either your team is set up for it, or they're not. You know what your employees are doing or you don't. Anything else is a cop-out.

 

[waclark]

Not any more .. hahahahahahaha .. with so many people retired during lockdowns because they were forced to retire, and the SUPER low birth rates as compared to the previous generation it will NOT be easy to fill their roles. so much so that unemployment is the lowest it has been in decades.

right not as long as all the grunts co-ordinate efforts .. the workers have the power right now ..

as for amazon, eff those guys they are scum bags, and they treat their employees like diapers .. don't even pay completive wages

Unemployment is low, because participation rates are low. We are running about 62.6% right now, which is an 8 yr low. Overall, we are down from a 16 yr high of 66.4% back in 2007.

I don't know all about what Amazon pays, but I know people who are making very good money there. Million-dollar home money. They go to the office 3 days a week.

 

[Sabby]

I'm with Jassy on this one. 2 or 3 days a week in-office is the best of both worlds and I think a fair compromise for both sides of the argument.

I'm a team lead and regularly host zoom meetings. My company allows fully remote, and my team works mostly remote, even though the majority of people are based in the HQ area.

The level of engagement in our planning meetings is nearly 0. Out of 12 people, 10 have their cameras off and don't say a single word through the whole meeting. If you call on them they need a minute to catch up on what we were talking about. The general tone couldn't be more disinterested and bored.

Our company does interesting work, and we follow pretty much every guide out there on how to keep morale and engagement high, but at the end of the day, people are people and they will only do the minimum required. People interact more when in-person. It's as simple as that.

Sounds like you need to find a better way to motivate and engage your staff. Forcing folks in the office will not automatically equate to higher engagement. Have you tried requiring staff to have their cams on when attending meetings?

 

[waclark]

This whole issue of productivity needs to be reframed not as a remote work vs in-person problem, but as a performance management problem.

I’ve worked both as a full-time in-office worker and a full-time remote worker. In both cases I’ve seen too many managers without the stones to hold individuals accountable much less terminate a poor performer. Remote or in-person, most people will quickly alter their behaviors if there are tangible consequences.

I’ve always treated remote work as a privilege that has to be continually earned. As a manager, don’t punish those of us who make it work and excel at it because you’re unwilling to have a hard conversation and occasionally take out the trash.

In general, I agree with your premise. However, some things are harder to manage. Sales is easy, you have a quota, and you make it, or you don't. Coding might be a little harder as you have to balance output of code with quality of code. The other issue, which is what Amazon is saying, is there are intangibles like people collaborating better together. Or learning new things from a co-worker that helps you do your job better. I can speak to this personally as I never would have learned Unix if not for the guy in the cubicle next to me.

I do like working from home, but my career is ending, not starting. I think there is value in the things you can learn when working side-by-side with other, more experienced people. It can help accelerate your career and I think someone young and ambitious would want to take advantage of that knowledge to enhance their hiring-potential.

 

[axiomatic13]

HPE just went from 3 days required in the office back to 2 days. I think that's a pretty clear message. Thankfully HPE's management seems to be far better than Amazon's at realizing that happy employees are better than unhappy ones.

 

[spac18]

The answer seems to be Amazon Unionizing: maybe not just for the warehouse and logistic people, sounds like corporate and AWS should organize with the logistics side and push together to unionize and stop this 'It's gonna end up bad for you, I'm making you an offer you can't refuse' type of intimidation tactics so openly.

Or maybe actually do the job for which you are actually being paid instead of moping around in your home?

 

[spac18]

Just fire these entitled *******es. I bet there's plenty of people who would be happy to visit their workplaces and earn their gainful livings.

 

[about30ninjas]

CEO is doing them a favor, who would want to work for those slave drivers anyways? They want them back in the office so they can micro-manage the crap out of them, most likely. Just quit and find a job where they don't treat their workers like cattle.

Entitlement goes both ways, while I never worked for Amazon, I've worked for an even larger company. As with most large CORPs, higher up management usually has their head so far up their, they have lost touch with their workers. Blaming remote work for not meeting so artificial goal is not the answer, how the company is being run is to blame. Plenty of companies are doing just fine with remote work. Guy wants his bonus for his new mega yacht and is throwing a corp speak fit.

 

[TheBigT42]

That sounds illegal. Grow a pair and fire them properly.

What universe do you live in where not showing up to work when you are told to is ok?

 

[wiyosaya]

Thing is for every person that loses their jobs because they refuse to work with the company that is paying them to do a job there are probably 1000 or more people that will be more than willing to take that job and support themselves and their families. These people have to remember something when they refuse to come into work and want to stay at home. They are not the boss they are just one of many employees that work at a company & they also have to remember they do not set the rules as they do not own squat, they work for someone else.

I am so tired of hearing oh we want to stay at home oh we don't have to come into work it is our right to stay at home. It's a pile of crap either you listen to your bosses and do the job they want you to do, and you were hired to do or pound sand and go elsewhere. A sI said there are many people out of work and most of those would be willing to fill the positions left behind by the slackers.

Thing is, for every company where management thinks that remote work does not work, there's a company that has found a way to make remote work function properly. There are still plenty of jobs open, and those that lose their jobs because of Amazon's continued stone-age working policies will find work elsewhere with little difficulty.

 

[m4a4]

What universe do you live in where not showing up to work when you are told to is ok?

What universe do you live in where you miss the context entirely? The whole "forced resignation" should've been super obvious...

 

[Rocky4040]

What universe do you live in where you miss the context entirely? The whole "forced resignation" should've been super obvious...

Pretty sure they were saying You are fired in the nicest way they could think of.

 

[Rocky4040]

Thing is, for every company where management thinks that remote work does not work, there's a company that has found a way to make remote work function properly. There are still plenty of jobs open, and those that lose their jobs because of Amazon's continued stone-age working policies will find work elsewhere with little difficulty.

What is totally funny is before Covid everyone was more than willing to show up work & do their job and get paid for it. Now days after the work from home group got a taste of working while in their bathrobes and not having to comb their hair or take showers. They do not want to stop being able to laze around for part of the day and do the required bare minimum that is needed to retain their jobs & collect a pay cheque.

 

[Rocky4040]

Not any more .. hahahahahahaha .. with so many people retired during lockdowns because they were forced to retire, and the SUPER low birth rates as compared to the previous generation it will NOT be easy to fill their roles. so much so that unemployment is the lowest it has been in decades.

right not as long as all the grunts co-ordinate efforts .. the workers have the power right now ..

as for amazon, eff those guys they are scum bags, and they treat their employees like diapers .. don't even pay completive wages

I am not sure where you are from but where I am at there are a lot of unemployed people. Trouble is a lot of them would rather live off of the government or a lot of the younger ones are now living with their parents and nesting there are way too many kiddies' living at home living off of their parents and do not care or have a worry for anything I know because we have one doing that right now. He is working and stashing his money and buying computer games. We just told him Sept 1, 2023, either pay us rent or he will have to look for a new place to live after 2 years of free loading its off of us it's time to either pay rent or pay rent somewhere else. Anyway, I got off topic.

My point stands for every person that is fired by Amazon there are several people that are out of work that can fill the spot. Problem is there are too many people that just do not want to work because it gets in the way of their personal lives.

 

[about30ninjas]

Interesting angle mentioned in this video: perhaps this is done to lighten the workforce at a company without having to fire anyone. Some will leave on their own and that's one less severance package or legal issue. But it can also create an issue with those same workers get a remote job working for your former employer's competitor. Another good point that was brought up was the cost savings when it comes to renting office space when having a remote work force.

 

[Fimbulvetr]

As a programmer who works from home, I am extremely grateful that I work for the company I do, and the management that I do. I was in-office until I got an offer to be completely remote from another company. I intended to take the offer, and my current boss asked me to stay and they would allow me to be completely remote. They have kept their word, and even my boss says it has worked out well and there is no need for me to be in-office, except for the occasional get-together a couple times a year, and productivity has not fallen at all while WFH. Admittedly I am one of the lucky ones!

 

[someOtherGuy]

Once again, the answer is somewhere in the middle. CEO has a right to have their employees in the office if they need them in the office to complete their job effectively. Jassy - fairly, though admittedly a stark shift, believes three days a good compromise. Employees, however, have likely moved their homes and their lives away from the urban office, and if they were told that full work from home was now company policy, be fairly granted ample time and maybe money (I'm assuming everyone's seen the housing market lately, hmmm...correlation?) to relocate back to the city/commuting distance.

Pie in the sky, maybe, this is the corporate world after all, and workers are replaceable.

Usually the requirement is only for people that live at certain distance from the office, not for "everyone" (that's usually, exceptions exists, for sure)

 

[someOtherGuy]

Not any more .. hahahahahahaha .. with so many people retired during lockdowns because they were forced to retire, and the SUPER low birth rates as compared to the previous generation it will NOT be easy to fill their roles. so much so that unemployment is the lowest it has been in decades.

right not as long as all the grunts co-ordinate efforts .. the workers have the power right now ..

as for amazon, eff those guys they are scum bags, and they treat their employees like diapers .. don't even pay completive wages

Haven't you heard about the AI revolution? The robotization? There are "robots" that flip burgers. I'm pretty sure there's a barista robot that get the perfect coffee EVERY SINGLE TIME and doesn't complain. The problem at this point is mostly financial: robots are more expensive than people. Push the equation and you'll find out.

 

[TheBigT42]

What universe do you live in where you miss the context entirely? The whole "forced resignation" should've been super obvious...

How is it forced? They will choose to show up and do their job or they won't. It is their choice. Any employer can't have employees not obeying they rules.

 

[m4a4]

How is it forced? They will choose to show up and do their job or they won't. It is their choice. Any employer can't have employees not obeying they rules.

If you aren't going to read the context to what you reply, don't

 

[TheBigT42]

If you aren't going to read the context to what you reply, don't

I you can read my context...Don't