Amazon to Enforce Five-Day Office Work Mandate, Ending Hybrid Model Next Year

Amazon announced that starting January 2, 2025, employees will need to work from the office five days a week. This change was shared by Amazon's CEO, Andy Jassy, in a letter to workers on Monday.

Currently, employees only have to go to the office three days a week, but that will soon end as Amazon believes being together in the office helps workers connect, learn, and work better as a team.

Amazon Announces Return-to-Office 5 Days a Week

Jassy explained that being in the office makes it easier for people to share ideas, solve problems, and learn from each other. He also said that when workers are together, it's easier to build a strong company culture, according to USA Today.

Over the past 15 months, Amazon has required workers to be in the office at least three days a week. After seeing how this worked, Jassy believes there are even more benefits to being in the office full-time.

Although some employees have protested, including a strike at the Seattle headquarters last May, the company is sticking with its decision. Workers who feel they have special reasons for not being able to come to the office can ask for permission, but most are expected to follow the new rule starting next year.

Amazon Plans Organizational Restructuring

In addition to the return-to-office plan, Amazon is also making changes to how its teams are structured. The company plans to increase the number of regular workers compared to managers by 15% by the end of March 2025. This is part of a plan to make the company more efficient, according to Reuters.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, like many companies, Amazon allowed employees to work from home. This helped the company grow a lot since more people were shopping online. In 2021, Amazon let team leaders decide whether their teams could continue working from home or come back to the office.

But by February 2023, Amazon began requiring employees to return to the office for three days a week. Some employees didn't like this change, but Jassy made it clear that working in person was important for the company's success.

Jassy is confident that the new full-time office policy will make Amazon stronger. He said that in-person work makes it easier for people to learn from each other, solve problems together, and help keep Amazon's culture alive. The company believes that working together in the same place helps make everything run more smoothly.

Amazon workers now have until January 2, 2025, to prepare for the new full-time office requirement.