As Amazon workers return to office, many LI companies hold on to hybrid schedules

Liana Inzerillo Werner enjoys working from her private office at the Long Island Board of Realtors headquarters in West Babylon. She is also grateful she can work from home a few days a week.

I appreciate the quiet of the office, especially given my two loud parakeets at home … I also enjoy the opportunities for social interaction and catching up with colleagues.

— Liana Inzerillo Werner, associate communications manager, Long Island Board of Realtors

"I appreciate the quiet of the office, especially given my two loud parakeets at home," said Werner, 33, of Medford. "I also enjoy the opportunities for social interaction and catching up with colleagues.”

Per her employer’s hybrid policy, Werner, the associate communications manager for the real estate agent trade group and nonprofit, works three days in the office one week, followed by two the week after.

Many Long Island businesses are grappling with how best to address return to office policies amid a push by major corporations like Amazon touting the benefits of in-person collaboration and productivity with a full-time office presence. As the debate and pushback over in-office mandates continue nationally and locally, hybrid arrangements remain the norm among many employers who seek to provide work-life balance and retain staff. 

Amazon, which in September announced it would require staff to return to the office full- time starting Jan. 2, is now delaying its RTO mandate in some locations because the company won’t have sufficient space, according to news reports.

AT&T recently announced its own shift to five days a week in the office, as Amazon's ripple effect reaches far beyond.

At LIBOR, though, CEO Doreen Spagnuolo said her organization has “no immediate plans to return to the office full-time,” adding hybrid work lets their staff “maintain the same high level of service quality while ensuring our team remains just as productive.”

Hybrid adopters vs. office advocates

Several global and national studies on return to office policies show a divided and potentially changing landscape, with surveys showing some CEOs want workers in the office more and workers often preferring hybrid policies. Surveys also show an overall trend of more time in the office, although few have reached five days a week.

In its Future of Work survey, JLL, a Chicago-based real estate services company, classified 56% of companies as "hybrid adopters," ranging from fully remote to three or four days weekly in the office, and 44% of organizations, or nearly half, as "office advocates" who prefer staff in the office five days a week.

The survey of 2,300 commercial real estate and "business decision makers," however, found that “the momentum has moved strongly to office-based work,” although five days was not the norm.

A 2024 national survey by accounting and consulting giant KPMG that studied workplace trends, however, found the pendulum swung “back to hybrid work." Only 34% of CEOs envisioned in-office jobs returning over three years, down from 62% in 2023, the survey found.

Meanwhile, a separate 2024 U.S survey by the same company examining CEOs' outlook on issues, including return to work policies, found that 79% of U.S. CEOs predicted full-time returns in three years, up from 34% earlier in the same year.

LI companies keeping options open

Several Long Island companies appear to seek to balance employee needs, company unity and the desire to do what's best for the business and employees.

Gary Zelamsky, president of Commack-based recruiting firm Executive Alliance, said most of his clients have “kept their hybrid or remote options.”

While some say being back in the office five days a week can generate “higher productivity or better team results,” he said most continue to offer hybrid work with productivity fueled by convenience, lack of commutes and work done after hours.

Ann Marie Gothard, a spokeswoman for Melville-based Henry Schein, a Fortune 500 company employing about 26,000, said half of Schein's office-based employees in the United States transitioned to a hybrid or remote work arrangement since the COVID pandemic.

Team Schein members have the flexibility to work one day or full-time from our Melville location ... [This model benefits] in-person collaboration with the advantages of remote work.

— Ann Marie Gothard, a spokeswoman for Melville-based Henry Schein

“Team Schein members have the flexibility to work one day or full-time from our Melville location,” she said, adding this model benefits “in-person collaboration with the advantages of remote work.”

Meanwhile, KayCee Baumgarten, executive assistant to the CEO and chairman of the EGC Group, a marketing agency in Melville, likes the “flexibility and trust” of the hybrid model. “No longer do driven, hardworking people have to choose between their families and their careers,” she said.

Decisions also depend on the type of organization. Commack-based Suffolk YJCC CEO Rick Lewis said his group “never allowed work from home” and hasn’t “dealt with the issues” that go with a shift.

And Anthony Buonaspina, founder and CEO of Babylon-based LI Tech Advisors, doesn’t require employees to report to the office. "It’s entirely optional for everyone," he said, noting their team can manage more than 7,000 field technicians. The remote option allows them to “balance their personal lives with their professional commitments," he said.

Five-day return a balancing act

While some companies see a downside to ditching hybrid or remote, others see benefits of a five-day return to the office. 

Jackie Ghedine, co-founder of Bellmore-based MGXW Consulting, said companies may want the sense of collective identity that comes from offices, but five-day return mandates can impact morale.

"Companies want a better 'culture,’ however, demanding more days in the office can have the opposite impact," Ghedine said, noting employees lose flexibility, and commutes added to already long days could create animosity and frustration.

“It’s likely that additional restriction would result in more turnover as workers seek the flexibility that they are accustomed to,” Zelamsky said.

Commute time and related costs are “the most often-cited objections” to returning to office full-time, according to JLL’s “Occupier and Workplace Trends” study conducted in the fourth quarter of 2023.

But KPMG’s American Worker Study found about 47% of workers said they are more productive on-site, and 62% said the social aspect of working on-site positively “impacts their organization’s corporate culture and their experience of belonging.”

"Many companies that used to require people at the office have loosened their standards," Zelamsky said. "Other companies are starting to tighten up. The economy is back. They find for their company the remote isn’t working for everybody.”

Retail and web services giant Amazon, which approved two remote days a week in 2021, has been getting pushback on its five days in the office mandate. A survey on the job review site Blind found 73% of Amazon workers were considering quitting due to the mandate. Glassdoor found 74% of Amazon workers are “rethinking” their career at Amazon.

But CEO Andrew Jassy sees benefits in the new mandate, despite any potential downside. “We continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant,” Jassy said in a September message shared with employees.

Citigroup has shifted some employees to five days a week, although many remain hybrid. LinkedIn, with 16,000 workers, and State Street, a financial services firm with 27,000 employees, now require staff to return to the office five days a week. 

A study by Seattle-based ResumeTemplates.com, which provides free resume templates, said 26% of companies as of September 2024, when the survey was done, had expanded return-to-office requirements in 2024, 12% planned to by the end of that year with another 9% in 2025.

Thirty-four percent of those moved or will move to five-days in the office, 28% to three days, 25% to four, and 14% to one or two days per week, according to the company.

But having employees return to the office full-time can be a way to cut workforce, according to ResumeTemplates.com’s chief career strategist Julia Toothacre.

Toothacre said some executives favoring five days cite the “hope that employees will quit, allowing them to avoid layoffs." Eight percent said they hoped five days would help shed lazy or unmotivated workers, while cutting costs.

Low unemployment rates, however, could make recruiting tougher, with Long Island unemployment in November at 3%, including 2.9% in Nassau and 3.1% in Suffolk, according to the New York State Department of Labor. 

Flexible work arrangements

Some Long Island companies are experimenting by expanding flexible work arrangements common in certain professions.

New Hyde Park-based Northwell Health, the region's largest health system, offers a flexible work schedule for some nonclinical employees, said Elina Petrillo, Northwell’s vice president of HR technology.

"That’s been around for a long time in clinical professions like nursing. And it continues to be an incredibly popular option," Petrillo said. "There’s a benefit of continuity with patient care on a longer shift. We see employees working three days a week for 12.5 hours and four days a week for 10 hours."

Some nonclinical Northwell employees shifted to fewer, but longer, days, especially during the summer, she said. "There are some nonclinical jobs that do a four-day work schedule in the summer to boost morale and improve engagement where there is operational flexibility," Petrillo added.

Companies with hybrid and remote workers are taking steps to keep people connected. Henry Schein, for instance, holds monthly “Connection Days” in Melville and other offices.

“We organize events to build team relationships, promote wellness, and connect with our culture while creating a positive work environment,” Gothard said.

The new norm

So what’s the new norm for companies across Long Island?

Three days in the office is the new norm, according to Lily Blocker, associate professor of management for Stony Brook University’s College of Business.

"Internal teams may choose the days, but one day may overlap with the greater company," Blocker said. "Wednesday is everybody, while Tuesday could be accounting, and engineering on Monday."

Buonaspina said different jobs and industries, naturally, have different norms.

And JLL’s Future of Work study found larger organizations with 10,000 or more employees favor hybrid, as well as e-commerce, tech and life sciences in part because “staff attraction and retention are crucial to success.”

Smaller companies up to 10,000 are more likely to favor more time in office, as well as industries with “customer-facing” staff or staff required to work on-site, such as health care, retail and manufacturing.

Zelamsky said two to three days in office is common with new workers sometimes seeking to negotiate days in the office, especially if they take care of children or the elderly. "If you’re a large company with a policy, that’s harder to change,” Zelamsky said. “But a smaller company has more flexibility for the owner to move things around.”

He added that while companies may want to tailor each decision to each employee, it’s important to have policies for legal and other reasons.

“They get themselves in hot water if they have different policies for different people,” he said. “It’s easier to avoid HR and legal issues, to have one policy."