Amazon staff have just returned back to the office ‘five days a week’. Here’s what it means for Aussie work from home employees

Amazon staff are returning to the office this month, after its corporate workforce was warned in September they would be expected to come in five days a week from January.

CEO Andy Jassy announced in a note to staff the business was taking a major step away from pandemic-era arrangements, with workers “in the office the way we were before the onset of COVID”.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Amazon workers head back to the office.

Jassy, who took over from founder Jeff Bezos in 2021, justified his position by saying employees work better when in the office together.

“We continue to believe the advantages of being together in the office are significant,” he said.

“It’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another.”

Amazon’s white-collar workers have been required to swipe into the office at least three days a week for the past 15 months — but on January 2, that moved to five days a week.

However, the move could spell disaster for its staff numbers, with statistics quoted by Sunrise claiming up to 70 per cent of local employees at the company were looking to move to new employment.

The survey conducted by US job review site Blind in the wake of the annoucement found 91 per cent were unhappy with the edict and 71 per cent were keen to find another job because of it.

Similarly, in Australia recent efforts to make Commonwealth Bank employees and NSW public servants to go back to the office have been met with a mixed response.

Employee Matters managing director Natasha Hawker joined Monique Wright on Sunrise on Monday, where she noted that although global companies might be shifting their staff back to the office that might not be the case for Aussie workers.

Wright pointed out in August 2021, at the height of the pandemic, there were 40 per cent of people working from home. That number has only dropped to 36 per cent, according to ABS statistics.

“Do you suspect that, despite these big companies we’re hearing about like Amazon and Dell, that others have seen the writing on the wall and don’t want to lose their employees?” Wright asked.

Hawker agreed.

“I think that’s very much the case,” she said.

“There is a lot of cases where, if you forced your employees to come back to work, there was a statistic or a survey done that said if you were forced, would you return to the office? 41 per cent said they would reluctantly go back.

“Twenty-six per cent said they would be looking for hybrid roles and 6 per cent said they would resign without another job to go to. That sounds like a mutiny.

“You do not want to lose your high performers. A lot of companies are going, ‘it’s here to stay’.”

Hawker said employers could force employees back to the office, but it was difficult to “put the genie back in the bottle”.

“I just think there are enormous benefits,” Hawker said, particularly for employees with children.

“By allowing our employees, because of COVID, to work from home, it is very difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.

“When we recruit for clients, we have candidates that will not go to an interview unless they’ve seen the working from home policy that says they can work from home.”