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Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

seattletimes.com

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Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#31

Post by josiahsiegel »

docflabby wrote: post #9

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.. .

Productivity has also appeared to increase with remote work (at least at my job), yet I keep seeing articles from high-profile CEOs on how remote work is bad for business. I'm not quite sure where all the resistance to remote work is coming from.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#32

Post by cle »

01100011 wrote: post #19
docflabby wrote: post #9

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?

Conversely in Amazon's case, they finished building multiple huge buildings in downtown Seattle right before COVID-19, which have been mostly empty since March 2020.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#33

Post by alasdair_ »

arnvald wrote: post #30
taurath wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 are a number of reasons, first is that by working from another location you might be breaking the law, second is taxes - if you stay somewhere long enough they might argue you need to pay income tax there. Lastly, data protection laws vary per country and there's a chance you have to give your laptop with company data to authorities in another country, which might be a security issue.

>second is taxes - if you stay somewhere long enough they might argue you need to pay income tax there

This is true even if you work a single day in a state. Consultants at Accenture, PWC, Bain etc. end up having to file in dozens of states a year sometimes. Fortunately their employer almost universally handles all the paperwork.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#35

Post by PragmaticPulp »

jon-wood wrote: post #22
KallDrexx wrote: post #2

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…

How disorganised does a team need to be that they need to call meetings so involved they can only be done in-person with less than 24 hour’s notice? This isn’t a genuine business requirement, it’s just management wanting to remind everyone that they’re on a leash which can be yanked whenever they like.

> How disorganised does a team need to be that they need to call meetings so involved they can only be done in-person with less than 24 hour’s notice?

I've put similar bounds on WFH hires before. Not because we were calling short-notice meetings frequently, but because it prevents single, long-distance employees from dominating all of the scheduling requirements.

Once you have someone on your team who needs a lot of notice to attend any meeting, you are now planning every single meeting around their schedule. Everyone else must choose between accommodating that person or quietly doing the thing without them. It's ultimately not a great experience for the employee who gets left out of things because their schedule has become difficult to accomodate.

It also sets appropriate expectations. Some people interview for flexible WFH positions when they really want full-remote positions, then spend a lot of energy trying to shut down any in-person meetings no matter how much the rest of the team wants them. This is a good way of signaling that in-person meetings are a requirement for the job.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#36

Post by qbasic_forever »

ripper1138 wrote: post #25
kreeben wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

Unquestionable human right?? Christ we are spoiled in tech.

Would love to know if they believe that 'unquestionable human right' extends to all the service workers that tend to their daily life by making and delivering their food, transporting them to/from entertainment, packing and delivering their toys/consumer goods, etc. too.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#37

Post by kreeben »

lolsal wrote: post #27
kreeben wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you must think of it as a privilege. And I shall not work for you.

I understand and that's fine. I don't actually care about where you work in this context. Human Rights are special things. They aren't preferences. The more you conflate the two, the more you erode your position and the term 'human right' in general. I would urge you to stop doing that.

>> Human Rights are special things

Very true and my point would have been made without me presenting it as such. My apologies.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#38

Post by ripper1138 »

kreeben wrote: post #28
ripper1138 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unquestionable human right?? Christ we are spoiled in tech.

It is not I who is spoiled. It is old school boomer management who have become spoiled and exploitative.

We are very fortunate to be paid as much as we are for sitting at home and working on a computer. Compared to 99% of other adults around the world, we are spoiled.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#39

Post by jorblumesea »

sharkweek wrote: post #6

I live in Seattle and thus a notable percentage of my social circle works at Amazon. The folks I know who work there were almost entirely all prepared to quit if the company forced their initial "everyone back in the office" requirement, especially in this current job market. It feels rare to see Amazon ever make a change to such a publicly stated policy like this, I can only imagine that the groundswell of feedback…

The other thing to add on is that Amazon is having a hard time recruiting, at least anecdotally from friends who work there. Between their reputation as a company and hot job market, filling some senior level eng roles has become near impossible.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#40

Post by hbosch »

cletus wrote: post #23

Does Amazon still insist on that draconian vesting schedule? They always had 5/15/40/40% for years 1/2/3/4. I ask because I’m curious how far employee pressure goes as that’s so much worse than other FAANG companies.

In my experience, they offset the first 2 years of vesting with cash. So all 4 of my first years were equivalent with RSUs/Cash with the first 2 years cash heavy, and the final 2 years RSU only.
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