new York
CNN
—

Amazon is requiring its employees to return to the office five days a week, a significant change from the current pandemic-era hybrid policy that only requires them to be in the office three days a week.

CEO Andy Jassy announced the new policy on Monday, writing that the change will help the company’s thousands of employees “invent, collaborate and be sufficiently connected to each other and our culture to deliver the absolute best for customers and the company.”

The new directive will come into force on 2 January 2025.

Jassy has previously advocated for employees to work in the office, writing that a physical presence improves company culture.

“Bringing many thousands of employees back to our offices around the world is not easy, so we will give the teams that need to do this work some time to develop a plan,” Jassy wrote in an earlier memo for 2023.

More than a year later, he maintained that position. In a memo on Monday, he wrote: “We continue to believe that there are significant benefits to working together in the office.” He also said he had “observed that it is easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice and strengthen our culture. Collaboration, brainstorming and invention are easier and more effective. Mutual teaching and learning is smoother. And teams tend to be better connected.”

If Amazon employees do not adhere to the current policy, it may affect their chances of promotion. Exceptions for working from home must also be approved by company management.

Amazon has faced some resistance from employees to this rule. Last year, some of the company’s employees went on strike at its Seattle headquarters, citing numerous grievances, including a push to get employees back to the office at least three days a week. The May 2023 strike also came months after the company confirmed it would lay off around 27,000 employees as part of several rounds of cuts.

Although companies in certain sectors, particularly on Wall Street, have emphasized a full return to the office, they have largely abandoned the requirement that their employees work in the office five days a week. Only 4% of U.S. CEOs and 4% of CEOs globally said earlier this year that they would make the full-time return of their employees to the office a priority, according to a Conference Board CEO survey.