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Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don't comply with its return-to-office policy, leaked documents show
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 15 Nov 2023
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I kind of don't get what's going on here. I'd think your options would be:
a) Go back to the office, or
b) Stop working there
Like you'd either say to your boss "Look, this work from home thing is really important to me, so I need to look for an opportunity where I can continue to do that," or your boss would say to you "Look, you keep not showing up to work, so we're gonna let you go."
It seems like any period where the company says "Okay, everybody back to the office" and some people say "Oh yeah I'm just gonna ignore that" has got to be pretty short-lived, right?
The whole reason that it works is because the company can't afford to lose everyone who's not complying.
But promotion blocking seems like a weak move. If returning to office is enough of a workplace issue to be a deal breaker, threatening people with not taking extra responsibilities or challenges seems like a losing proposition. They're already willing to lose their job over the issue, and you've shown that you can't lose them, so now you're gonna make it shittier to remain at the company?
And even besides the perspective that promotions are a benefit, many roles are in place for the company's sake, to stay organised, are they now gonna not fill those? Or only fill them with external applicants?
Or is the idea to only promote the compliant ones? That would make some sense, at least.
I work at AWS (won't after this Friday since I got a remote job), and while I'm pretty low on the totem pole, internally it is very clear what is going on. Leadership is slowly phasing out non-proximate workers. Why? No one knows really, but our best guess is unofficial layoffs and upholding commercial real estate.
It started with RTO 3 days a week for everyone except remote employees in May. Then in September basically all remote employees were forced to relocate to their team hub. This was as much of a shit show as you think. You were given 30 days to decide and 60 days to move. What people did was "decide" on the last day to move, and then drag their feet for the next 60. Then quit without notice as soon as they had another job lined up. Don't get me wrong the market is rough, but 90 days is enough to find a job if you have halfway decent connections and AWS on your resume. By now my team already lost half of our devs (3/6).
More recently, in waves, they're forcing people to relocate to team hubs. Even teams who were historically spread out across the US. I'm from the west coast but my team is in Colorado and the second I caught wind of this I grinded my ass off and got another job. When I told my manager he was very understanding but frustrated at the situation. My two teammates were even more frustrated, and one of them is on the west coast too. My team could be one person soon.
Didn't mean for this to turn into a rant, but Amazon is nuking teams left and right like this and it will catch up to them. As a whole things are breaking more often in AWS systems than usual, and our service is starting to show cracks. Our reliability is down hard because we had a collective 35 years of knowledge leave our org. Almost all of whom were the team expert.
Yeah, Amazon has a pretty long track record of burning through employees at all levels. From the outside it looks like it's very much to their detriment, but I guess they feel differently since they still do it.
Sorry it's happening to you though. Hope you find a less sociopathic employer!
Ohh, so for many employees, it's not "return to office" at all-- It's a euphemism for "start going to the office," which you didn't have to do before, because your position was remote? That's actually much worse, wow-- Especially if you'd have to relocate.
Or I guess maybe it's more like they expect you not to relocate, through the "unofficial layoffs" lens.
That really sucks. I guess it also has some explanatory power for why they are taking these odd half-measures and tolerating non-compliance-- There are people who don't even live near an office.
Really sorry that's happening. I hope you find a company that keeps its promises.
Yup! That's the bullshit part and what really grinds my gears when people say we're just whining. I have 0 problem going to an office that I was assigned at my date of hire. What I have a problem with is 1) retroactively assigning offices to remote designated employees and 2) forcibly relocating people across the country for zero reason. They're actively uprooting entire families and fucking so many people over.
I'm fortunate enough to have gotten another job before it impacted me thanks to referrals from friends, but not everyone is as fortunate.
Yes, that is 100% weapons-grade bullshit. Hopefully as a result of all of this, people start insisting on having their remote status written into their contracts, with steep penalties for breaches. Fool me once, shame on you, etc.
Congrats on the new job. I hope things go better for you from now on. At least that AWS experience will provide some nice career capital to make up for your poor treatment.
Thank you! I'm already getting some great use out of it as my new company hired me largely because of my AWS experience. I also learned a ton there thanks to my exceptionally brilliant team so I can't say I regret my time there even if it was stressful.
Loyalty and obedience prized over competence once again
The policy is as much aimed at pragmatic people managers as it is as actual staff. Your boss might be fully aware that they would struggle to replace you and will be quite happy with you working from home and so cuts an off books deal as this stops your manager from suffering reduced output for their team while they struggle to replace you.
I have personally been in this situation for the last two decades, I have worked from home pretty much full time across multiple, separate companies. One place I worked post lock down even used the staff who didn't mind being the office to improve the team average to benefit those who did.
A company wide policy like this will make it hard for the manager to cut such a deal, particularly if Amazon get petty over checking IP addresses and swipe card usage.
I think this is very likely, though it's also prolonging this whole exercise by avoiding the dramatic conclusion and spreading the pain out over a longer time.
If every manager at Amazon woke up tomorrow and said "screw it, we're enforcing this policy", that would result in a mass firing event of quality talent, and Amazon would feel the pain of their policy decisions and either have to swallow that and try to move on or beat a hasty retreat and call this whole thing off. It would be a quick and decisive end to this whole debate, but instead we have month after month of employees stressed and angry while looking rebellious and unmanageable, managers stressed and frustrated while looking ineffective, and the senior leadership frustrated and looking impotent.
Someone's going to win this fight eventually, but everyone trying to find middle ground and skirt the policy just takes what would be one big fight and turns it into many months of slow unease and turmoil that's bad for everyone. I want the remote people to win this, but sometimes the way to win is the lose on purpose. Let the dog catch the car so he can realize what an idiot he was being.
Completely agree, although I think cheap removal of expensive staff is one of the main goals here. Amazon don't value the majority of staff, not just the ones involved with the warehouses and home delivery so valuing the output of those in positions that can be work at home isn't really in their nature. This is of course extremely short sighted of them but they will not change until they are forced to.
its no different when IBM, HP, etc. targeted older workers to be replaced by the then younger and much cheaper millennials who lacked the institutional knowledge and still got undercut by the Indians. Its almost always about the cash.
Some middle managers will actually be ok with WFH and have great people working with them. I guess it’s about those scenarios where the management is actually shielding the employees from a stupid policy.
Amazing how okay people are with a dictator when they're called a CEO rather than a politician.
Just give up your whole livelihood, or be forced to move across the country, it's okay guys it's policy. Unreal.
It's always nice when people preemptively show you their entire ass and let you know you can just block them now.
One day you're hopefully going to learn that just because a company can do x or y does not mean that they should or that it is in their best interests to do so.
The problem os that they rely on their employees.. go figure.. this just means they cant afford to fire these people.
yeah looks like they cannot afford severance and unemployment