Amazon orders workers back to the office 5 days a week

(NewsNation) — Amazon wants employees back in the office five days a week, CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a memo Monday.

Jassy said he believes there are significant advantages to having employees in the office and is giving corporate staffers until Jan. 2, 2025, to follow the new policy.

The announcement marks a change to the company's remote work rules, which have been in place since May 2023 and require staff to be in the office at least three days a week.

"Before the pandemic, it was not a given that folks could work remotely two days a week, and that will also be true moving forward — our expectation is that people will be in the office outside of extenuating circumstances," Jassy said.

The CEO said in-person work makes it easier for employees to "learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture," among other advantages.

"If anything, the last 15 months we’ve been back in the office at least three days a week has strengthened our conviction about the benefits," Jassy said.

According to the memo, Amazon also plans to simplify its corporate structure to cut down on bureaucracy.

Jassy said the company will have "fewer managers" in order to "remove layers and flatten organizations."

Each major organization within Amazon will need to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of the first quarter of 2025, he said.

"We want more of our teammates feeling like they can move fast without unnecessary processes, meetings, mechanisms, and layers that create overhead and waste valuable time," Jassy said.

Amazon's return-to-office push comes more than a year after many employees were told they would need to move to main offices in bigger cities.

Other major U.S. companies like UPS, Walmart and Boeing have also moved away from remote work.