Amazon's office policy sparks questions over employee retention and productivity 

Global e-commerce giant Amazon announced that starting next year, corporate employees would no longer have a hybrid workplace arrangement and will be required to be in the office five days a week.

The company had allowed employees to work remotely two days a week since February 2023.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told staff in a memo that barring "extenuating circumstances," employees would be expected to be in the office starting Jan. 2.

The move puts Amazon in the same category as companies like Tesla, which have mandated in-person work policies. Companies in the finance, technology and professional business services industries continue to lead in their use of remote or hybrid policies.

As of last month, 12% of full-time working Americans were fully remote, 27% had a hybrid arrangement, and 61% were required to be in person each day, according to data from the Survey of Working Arrangements and Attitudes, a monthly online survey run by the University of Chicago, Stanford University and others.

Among full-time workers who could do their job from home, however, the most common arrangement was a hybrid policy.

Of workers with eligible types of work, 42.6% said they worked a hybrid schedule, followed by 35% who said they were fully on site, and 22.4% who said they worked entirely remotely.

"For most companies, hybrid is still the most prevalent model," said Brad Bell, director of the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies at Cornell University’s School of Industrial Labor Relations.

Many employers, Bell said, have adapted to the use of hybrid policies, as they provide a valuable benefit to workers and helps with attraction and retention of employees. But some, he said, have likely been waiting for an opportune moment in the labor market to bring workers back full-time.

"There are probably companies that would have liked to go back to that model but were hesitant to do so because of the shortage of labor they were facing," he said.

With the labor market loosening and the economy slowing, Bell said, it’s possible that employers like Amazon feel like they have more leverage over employees than early in the pandemic when workers were harder to find.

"The interesting question for Amazon and for any company that takes advantage of that upper hand in the market is, what happens when things swing back the other way?" he said. "Will some of these employees be biding their time and looking elsewhere?"

The e-commerce giant isn’t alone in planning changes to workplace policies in the new year.

Melville-based Canon USA announced at the start of August that the company would be reducing the number of days workers could work from home from three to two, said Jami Schultz, senior director and general manager of corporate HR at Canon USA.

"We just announced to all of our employees that effective the beginning of January, we would be changing our policy to three days in office, two days remote," said Schultz.

Schultz said the company made the decision for many of the reasons cited by Amazon: a desire to increase collaboration and strengthen company culture. But unlike Amazon, Canon sees value in the hybrid model.

"We want to give our employees more opportunities to collaborate more," Schultz said. "But at the same time we still recognize that our employees like the hybrid schedule where they can still have some remote days."

Hybrid work strikes a mutually beneficial balance between workers and employers, giving employees more flexibility during the week and giving management regular opportunities to engage with their teams, said Mimi Bishop, corporate consultant and co-founder of MGXW Consulting in North Bellmore.

"The hybrid model and flexibility are something that’s become very important to people," Bishop said.

For many jobseekers, she said, whether a company offers remote options or not can be a decisive factor for recruitment.

"In the new modern workplace people want the flexibility, they want the autonomy, and they are going to start demanding that."

Derek Peterson, founder and chief executive of Soter Technologies in Ronkonkoma, said Amazon’s move to a five-day a week schedule makes sense for a company focused on innovation.

As a tech entrepreneur, Peterson said, regular in-person collaboration and impromptu discussions in the office are a necessary component to launching and completing projects.

Soter develops computer software and hardware and exports its signature anti-vaping sensors for schools to more than 40 countries.

"How do you breed a business culture with everyone remote? You just can’t do it," said Peterson, whose company instituted a 100% in-office work policy in early 2022. "You can make do with remote tools. You can make the best of it. But how do you build more rapport?"

Peterson has had instances where prospective hires fell through because of his company’s in office policy, but that the benefits outweigh potential drawbacks, he said.

"I can get up right away and go talk to somebody. I can grab my marketing director and meet my VP of engineering," he said. "That’s worth a lot."

For some, like Anthony Buonaspina, founder and chief executive of IT managed services firm LI Tech Advisors in Babylon, a 100% remote working model has been a major boon for his business, he said.

"I’m getting more out of it now and even more out of my employees than when they were on site," said Buonaspina, who employs 10 workers, some of whom live in other states.

Operating remotely does require consistent effort and benchmarking to make sure employees remain engaged, Buonaspina said. Regular morning meetings over video, followed by regular breakout sessions, and all-day communication via tools like Slack are a necessity, he said.

"You have to have processes and procedures in place to make this work," Buonaspina said.