Get High at Work!

Amazon Mandates RTO

Written by

Kevin Sandlin

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Yesterday, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy held a meeting to discuss the pending return to office mandate at Amazon. A summary of his defense of the mandate:

“This was not a cost play for us. This is very much about our culture and strengthening our culture.”

As expected, the response is coming in hot.

Now go back 10 years, and consider this situation: you hire a new employee, and expect them to show up at work on their starting day.

Weird that we now consider that as just one option.

One hot take on the negative view of Jassy’s RTO mandate made these points on why Amazon will “risk losing talent”, citing a survey of 3,853 Americans conducted in February 2024:

* Remote work boosts critical areas like mental health and engagement.
* For most employees, full-time office work isn’t the ideal setup.
* Only a small portion of workers actually perform better in an on-site environment.

As I work from my screened porch this beautiful fall morning, I maintain my point of view that WFH vs. RTO is 100% dependent upon the organization, and senior leadership has the very visible responsibility of choosing the best path for their organization.

I’m on Jassy’s side here: “This is very much about our culture and strengthening our culture.”

The only thing in any business that leadership has 100% control over is the culture of the organization.

You can build and maintain great culture with WFH, RTO, or hybrid. Any of them will work.

Leaders get to (have to!) choose.

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