Amazon recently announced a major shift: starting in January, employees will be required to work from the office five days a week. This policy, shared by Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), comes with a clear message: those who don’t agree with the change are free to explore other job opportunities. In a company-wide meeting, Garman explained that Amazon sees in-person collaboration as essential to fostering innovation and believes this move will help achieve the company’s ambitious goals. For employees unwilling to return full-time, he suggested that other companies may offer work environments that better suit their needs.
“If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s okay—there are other companies around,” Garman told Reuters. He clarified that he didn’t mean it in a negative way, but believes that Amazon’s best work comes from in-person collaboration. “When we want to really innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we’re not in-person,” he added.
Garman claims that most employees support the change, saying that nine out of ten employees he spoke to were in favor of the move. However, many Amazon workers have expressed frustration. They argue that requiring a five-day office schedule adds unnecessary commute time and stress, without clear evidence that it improves productivity. Employees point to studies that suggest remote work can be just as effective, if not more so.
Until now, Amazon required employees to work in the office three days a week, a policy that some employees still resisted. Recently, CEO Andy Jassy announced that the shift to five days was necessary for Amazon to “invent, collaborate, and be connected.” In cases where employees failed to comply with the three-day rule, some were informed they were “voluntarily resigning” and were even locked out of company systems.
Unlike other tech giants like Google, Meta, and Microsoft, which allow their employees to work from the office two or three days a week, Amazon is taking a more hardline approach with its five-day mandate. Garman said he’s excited about the change, though he knows not everyone feels the same way. He emphasized that Amazon’s goals require close teamwork that, in his view, is best achieved with everyone in the office.
As Amazon, the world’s second-largest private employer, rolls out this policy, employees now face a choice: commit to full-time office work or consider finding a different job that offers more flexibility.
