Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 403 posts

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#171

Post by vb6sp6 »

offbyone wrote: post #158

If you want my cynical take, here's the real reason that Amazon and other big companies are all-in on RTO: the commercial real estate collapse that may (will?) happen if downtown office districts don't repopulate: https://wapo.st/3QXHpFT I think the reason that Amazon leadership isn't bringing data to support RTO is that not only are they aware of the "Urban Doom Loop” that this article is referring to, but I'd bet y…

its even more cynical than that. They aren't doing this for the greater good of preserving downtown areas, they are losing their tax breaks: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-02-21/tax-br...

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#172

Post by jupp0r »

gidorah wrote: post #159
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #133

Layoffs sound bad... hmm... how to get rid of a chunk of employees without making it look like a layoff, so our shareholders won't get scared? Let's take away the benefits and make them quit instead!

Trouble is that with layoffs you can get rid of bad staff. How do you stop good staff quitting?

Good staff will quit by themselves after the layoffs unless incentivized to stay.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#173

Post by electriclove »

gidorah wrote: post #159
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #133

Layoffs sound bad... hmm... how to get rid of a chunk of employees without making it look like a layoff, so our shareholders won't get scared? Let's take away the benefits and make them quit instead!

Trouble is that with layoffs you can get rid of bad staff. How do you stop good staff quitting?

I think they believe they can still continue to attract top talent. Otherwise, they wouldn’t go down this path.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#174

Post by notatoad »

polski-g wrote: post #123
mydriasis wrote: post #106

Read: Amazon CEO lays off its remote staff without severance

Why would you expect severance for being terminated with cause (re: insubordination)?

Big companies hate firing for cause. it's almost always cheaper to pay the severance than to take on the liability of proving cause. It's extremely unlikely that amazon would go this route.

Disguising layoffs as something else is about the stock price. It's not about getting out of paying severance.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#175

Post by manishsharan »

lapcat wrote: post #121

Jassy said the quiet part out loud and admitted what I've always suspected, that most CEOs don't have original thoughts, instead governing by groupthink: > Other company CEOs helped Jassy make up his mind too. Jassy spoke to "60 to 80 CEOs of other companies over the last 18 months," and "virtually all of them" preferred in-office work, he said. I bet that none of those individual CEOs could empirically prove that re…

The fear of an collapse in commercial real estate is driving these decisions. What 4 hours of your life each day compared to the well being of the real estate moguls ?

I am staying at my job (100% wfh )and foregoing other opportunities in the job market as an extra hour of playtime with my kid is worth that much to me. The minute my employer changes their mind, I will be out hunting similar WFH job

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#176

Post by SilverBirch »

To be honest I think 3 days a week in the office is a perfectly reasonable requirement. It gives enough opportunity for people to get face to face time and to build the relationships they need to build whilst still offering flexibility. Should it be combined with some flexibility for edge cases? Sure, managers will always turn a blind eye when it makes sense. And part of that is you can only have flexibility if the base line is established, if 50% of workers are still refusing to come in, the only way to solve that is a mass "Show up or else". In reality in 6 months you have a quiet word with your boss and probably the flexibility will creep back.

Having said that, the way we got here is less than ideal. Senior management at tech companies made a whole tonne of bad promises and poor decisions during the pandemic and they've taken no ownership of that at all. The only reason this has become so difficult is because Senior management didn't have the intelligence to say "Hey, this pandemic is a once in a lifetime event, we're going to be flexible now but we need you to know this won't last".

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#177

Post by softwaredoug »

Given recent Big Tech behavior -- ie Amazon hiring based on work flexibility, then laying people off, then switching to RTO, who would trust these companies enough to move across the country for a role?

In my (40 yo+) peer group people have largely settled down somewhere not near a home office during the pandemic. People have the entire cost structure of home ownership, day care, and commuting built around not needing to be in a major metro going into an office. I would be very doubtful, unless the senior-staff-principal hiring faded, that they would comply with RTO before switching roles.

One solution to this could be to do what companies used to do - open more regional branch offices. Don't be so concentrated in one or two major metros that you eliminate any flexibility whatsoever.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#178

Post by vb6sp6 »

DaveFr wrote: post #126

Per the NYPost article on this, > During the meeting, which is known in internal Amazon lingo as a “fishbowl” meeting, Jassy declined to share data that motivated his decision to require employees to return to the office. The CEO told his charges it was a “judgment” call. Could some brave soul please leak whatever data these guys are seeing? Reports, statistics, even just emails where they whine about empty offices?…

[dead]

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#179

Post by browningstreet »

stilwelldotdev wrote: post #127

What about the employees that have a requirement to work remotely due to a disability?

C'mon -- every corporate mandate has its exceptions and allowances. This one's obvious. And when I worked at a company and had a full-time remote allowance per my employment contract, guess what? The RTO mandate didn't apply to me.

Re: Amazon CEO reportedly told remote employees: It’s probably not going to work out

#180

Post by manuelabeledo »

dfxm12 wrote: post #155
DaveFr wrote: post #126

Per the NYPost article on this, > During the meeting, which is known in internal Amazon lingo as a “fishbowl” meeting, Jassy declined to share data that motivated his decision to require employees to return to the office. The CEO told his charges it was a “judgment” call. Could some brave soul please leak whatever data these guys are seeing? Reports, statistics, even just emails where they whine about empty offices?…

The data probably suggests they should lay off a bunch of people & that this might be best way for them to do so, in terms of not legally needing to offer severance, legal issues, PR, stock prices, etc.

I have read this reasoning from time to time, but how does it make sense?

Wouldn't most of the high performers who don't want to go back to the office, just quit and get a better job, while low performing individuals would stick as long as possible since they could keep slacking as long as they go to the office three days a week?

Post reply on HN