Amazon says goodbye to home office: its employees will return to the office in 2025

Amazon has taken a tougher stance than many of its rivals as Covid-19 has become less of an everyday threat. Employees have described to Reuters how Amazon has required them to report, in some cases, to distant offices or to commute to Seattle to keep their jobs.

Some employees who consistently failed to comply with the three-day mandate were told they were “voluntarily resigning” and blocked from accessing Amazon systems. An Amazon spokesman did not immediately respond to say whether the new mandate will be as strict, nor did an employee question-and-answer session shared with Reuters on Monday make that clear.

The order has been deeply unpopular among a group of employees who have said working from home is effective and saves time and money on commuting. In May last year, workers at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters staged a walkout in protest of the e-commerce giant’s climate policy changes, layoffs and order to return to the office.

As part of an organizational restructuring, Amazon is seeking to increase the ratio of individual employees to managers by at least 15% by the end of the first quarter of 2025. In the Q&A, Amazon said that “some organizations may identify roles that are no longer needed,” without providing additional details.

Amazon is also eliminating a previous program that allowed workers the option to work from anywhere for four months a year, according to the Q&A.