Live data from Hacker News

Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

seattletimes.com

11–20 of 564 posts

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#11
post #7

From the blog post > At this stage, we want most of our people close enough to their core team that they can easily travel to the office for a meeting within a day’s notice. We also know that many people have found the ability to work remotely from a different location for a few weeks at a time inspiring and reenergizing. We want to support this flexibility and will continue to offer those corporate employees, who ca…

Really curious why only within country? Security reasons? Also why 4 weeks? Just to be available for meetings? I find it funny that this is the American version of a nice holiday - go pay money to rent an Airbnb so you can work in a different environment.

There's really no such concept as an employee in another country. You need a subsidiary incorporated in that country and then they become an employee of that entity. So...huge paperwork hassle at the very least.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#12

From the blog post > At this stage, we want most of our people close enough to their core team that they can easily travel to the office for a meeting within a day’s notice. We also know that many people have found the ability to work remotely from a different location for a few weeks at a time inspiring and reenergizing. We want to support this flexibility and will continue to offer those corporate employees, who ca…

>> work up to four weeks per year fully remote

Wow, that's really something.

Personally, having spent a pandemic working fully remote I wouldn't even consider working for a company that didn't offer that as an unquestionable human right, didn't frown upon it, didn't consider it to be "a way to refresh my sense of duty" and didn't think of it as a privilege.

I'm never going back to the open landscape of hell.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#13
I am noticing a lot of the big tech companies are becoming more flexible about remote work, but they are still far away from a true remote friendly option for me at least.

It seems the expectation is that they want people to be available to come to the office on demand every once in a while, so you need to be living within at least a 1-2 hour drive from the office. While that is certainly an improvement, it isn't true remote.

If there are any big tech companies who only expect travel to the office a few times a year I would love to hear about them!

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#15
post #3

I spoke to an Amazon recruiter the other day; the expectation that he shared was that everyone is still expected in the office in the new year.

This announcement was literally today, and the announcement specifically says people are probably only just learning about it today...

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#16

I am noticing a lot of the big tech companies are becoming more flexible about remote work, but they are still far away from a true remote friendly option for me at least. It seems the expectation is that they want people to be available to come to the office on demand every once in a while, so you need to be living within at least a 1-2 hour drive from the office. While that is certainly an improvement, it isn't tru…

A colleague told me that NTT, with a staff of 320,000, is now 100% permanently remote.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#17
post #7

From the blog post > At this stage, we want most of our people close enough to their core team that they can easily travel to the office for a meeting within a day’s notice. We also know that many people have found the ability to work remotely from a different location for a few weeks at a time inspiring and reenergizing. We want to support this flexibility and will continue to offer those corporate employees, who ca…

Really curious why only within country? Security reasons? Also why 4 weeks? Just to be available for meetings? I find it funny that this is the American version of a nice holiday - go pay money to rent an Airbnb so you can work in a different environment.

There's different tax, visa and HR regulatory implications they probably don't want to deal with. For example if Amazon has an American worker who decides to work remotely in France (where Amazon is also established) can Amazon fire the American "at will" or are they subjected to French regulations that make terminating workers extremely difficult?

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#19

One of the things that's been missed is that remote working has been a big part of counteracting the massive inflation that's been caused by covid. Making people go into the office is a effectively a pay cut with all the price increases. Start forcing people in and salary expectations will rise accordingly.. .

Somewhat related: I wonder how many companies are seeing profit increase because of reduced costs associated with on-site workers? I wonder if the increase in costs as folks return to the office is being factored in their stock prices?

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#20
post #7

From the blog post > At this stage, we want most of our people close enough to their core team that they can easily travel to the office for a meeting within a day’s notice. We also know that many people have found the ability to work remotely from a different location for a few weeks at a time inspiring and reenergizing. We want to support this flexibility and will continue to offer those corporate employees, who ca…

Really curious why only within country? Security reasons? Also why 4 weeks? Just to be available for meetings? I find it funny that this is the American version of a nice holiday - go pay money to rent an Airbnb so you can work in a different environment.

Tax, visa, and regulatory reasons. Other jurisdictions will impute residency for all legal purposes if you spend too much time there or work from there. They are trying to avoid myriad very messy legal edge cases.
Post reply on HN