Amazon tells employees to go back to the office five times a week

Amazon said it would require employees to be in the office five days a week starting in January, reverting to its pre-pandemic policy of three days a week.

CEO Andy Jassy said in a message shared with employees on Monday that the company’s leadership had been thinking about how to better "invent, collaborate and be connected enough to each other" to deliver the best results 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. When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant," Jassy added.

The company decided that bringing employees back into Amazon offices five days a week was a way to address that issue, the CEO said. The policy takes effect on January 2, 2025.

Like many other companies, Amazon’s corporate employees worked remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the company saw massive gains from a boost in online shopping.

In 2021, the tech giant implemented a policy that allowed leaders to determine how their teams worked.

In February 2023, Amazon asked all employees to come back to the office for three mandatory days, resulting in some protests from workers.

A few months later, Jassy said employees who were not happy about the change should learn to "disagree and commit".

He also issued somewhat of a subtle threat, saying it was "probably not going to work out" for those who refused to do so.

In his note on Monday, Jassy said the company has observed that it is easier for employees to "learn, model, practice and strengthen" Amazon’s culture and brainstorm when they’re together in person.

"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," he said.