AWS CEO Matt Garman has apparently attacked workers unhappy with the company's forced return-to-office policy.
Earlier this year, Amazon Web Service (AWS) announced that staff will be required to be in the office five days a week, ending its hybrid work policy. Workers had until January 2 to return to full-time in-person work.
As expected, this did not go well. Reports emerged claiming that up to 90% of workers were unhappy with this, and 73% were considering changing jobs, to which Garman has now given his blessing.
But not in a bad way
“If there are people who just don't work well in that environment and don't want to, that's fine, there are other companies,” Garman said, adding that the decision was made to allow workers to “invent, collaborate and network.”
But compliance with the hybrid work order was fiercely enforced, and some employees who did not comply with the policy were told they were “voluntarily resigning” and blocked from accessing company systems.
The policy has certainly proven unpopular with some employees who will now lose the benefits of working from home and spend more time commuting. But AWS wants to make it clear that this is a positive change.
“By the way, I don't mean that in a bad way,” he said, adding, “we want to be in an environment where we work together.”
“When we really want to innovate interesting products, I haven't seen the ability to do that when we're not in person,” Garman said.
While some major companies are bringing back-to-work orders, Spotify has bucked the trend. In a recent statement, Spotify is sticking to its hybrid work policy, as the HR director said the company trusts its workers, adding that they don't want to “treat them like children.”
Via Reuters