Matthew Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), supported the company’s new policy of a five-day work week in the office. He noted that employees who disagree with this decision can look for work in other companies.
Amazon’s new policy, which will take effect in January, requires employees to work in the office five days a week. This decision has caused controversy among the company’s employees. Garman said that nine out of ten employees he spoke to support the new policy.
At an AWS employee meeting, Garman emphasized the importance of in-person presence for innovation and collaboration.
«When we want to create interesting products, I didn’t see any way to do it without a personal presence», he said.
Many Amazon employees criticize the new policy. They believe that the additional commute time is wasted and that the benefits of working in the office are not supported by independent data. Some employees who did not comply with the previous requirement to work in the office three days a week were informed of «voluntary resignation» and blocked from accessing corporate systems.
Unlike other tech giants such as Google, Meta, and Microsoft, which have a two- to three-day-in-the-office policy, Amazon is taking a tougher stance on employee return.
Garman explained that three days in the office is not enough to achieve the company’s goals. He emphasized the importance of personal interaction for learning Amazon’s leadership principles.
«You can’t learn them by just reading them on a website, you have to experience them every day», Garman said.
As a reminder, recently more than 700 employees of Ubisoft France took part in a three-day strike due to a dispute over work from home and wages.
Source: Reuters