Amazon’s cloud chief tells staff to ‘find another job’ if they disagree with office return

Amazon Web Services (AWS) chief executive officer Matt Garman has delivered a stark message to employees who oppose the company’s new five-day in-office requirement: find employment elsewhere if you disagree.

During an all-hands meeting at Amazon’s second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, Garman emphasised the importance of in-person collaboration for driving innovation and maintaining the company’s culture.

“If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s OK, there are other companies around,” Garman stated, according to reports from CNBC and Reuters.

The new mandate, announced last month, requires Amazon’s corporate employees to be in the office five days a week starting 2 January, a significant shift from the previous three-day requirement implemented post-pandemic.

Garman, who assumed leadership of AWS in June, defended the policy change, arguing that face-to-face interactions are crucial for the company’s ambitious goals, particularly in the competitive field of generative artificial intelligence.

“When we want to really, really innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we’re not in-person,” Garman explained.

The move has sparked considerable backlash among Amazon’s workforce. Approximately 37,000 employees have joined an internal Slack channel advocating for remote work, expressing concerns about the impact on productivity, work-life balance, and caregiving responsibilities.

Despite the pushback, Garman claimed that the majority of staff he has spoken with support the change. “Nine out of ten people are actually quite excited by this change,” he stated, though he acknowledged that some flexibility would be granted for specific circumstances.

The AWS chief highlighted the difficulties of maintaining Amazon’s unique culture and “leadership principles” in a remote setting. He particularly emphasised the challenge of implementing the “disagree and commit” principle, which encourages respectful debate, over video calls.

“I don’t know if you guys have tried to disagree via a Chime call – it’s very hard,” Garman remarked, referring to Amazon’s internal communication platform.

As the deadline for compliance approaches, Amazon employees face a critical decision: adapt to the new in-office requirements or seek opportunities elsewhere. The company’s stance marks a departure from the policies of many tech industry peers, such as Google, Meta, and Microsoft, which have maintained more flexible hybrid work models.

The outcome of this policy shift could have significant implications for Amazon’s workforce dynamics and its position in the increasingly competitive tech sector, as it strives to balance innovation with employee satisfaction in a post-pandemic work landscape.