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Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

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Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#81

Post by charcircuit »

kevindamm wrote: post #22
sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It shouldn't be about hours in a seat, it should be about deliverables met and actions & communication around those that couldn't be met. For knowledge work and creative tasks, at least. I would really be surprised if Amazon didn't allow their top performers a day or two of WFH per week in pre-pandemic days. Other FAANGs basically had that policy before the pandemic. If they're really saying 5-day RTO for everyone, y…

This logic fails to account for priorities changing. If priorities change Friday morning it could mean all the work you did that week was worthless. Should one spend their whole weekend working to finish some deliverance or should it be limited by the expected hours? Similarly if someone front loaded 40 hours Monday through Friday and priorities change on Friday or a critical bug comes in people will have to wait until Monday.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#82

Post by AliveShine »

ardit33 wrote: post #24

Amazon culture is only viable because the H1B system. I worked there (yes I was on H1B), and they made sure to delay any green card conversion at every step possible in order to keep you there longer. If they were unable to abuse it, they'd be more employee friendly.

spot on

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#83

Post by dehrmann »

aaa_2006 wrote: post #41

This whole issue makes me wonder whether the real problem is Amazon’s high cost structure rather than RTO policies alone. If employees are forced back into expensive offices just to justify those huge campus investments, maybe the better fix is shedding real estate, not tweaking attendance rules.

Occupied offices are more expensive to operate than vacant ones (more power, more HVAC, more janitorial). Those buildings might be expensive, but using them is more expensive.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#84

Post by phil21 »

ascendantlogic wrote: post #28
randycupertino wrote: post #6

5 days a week RTO is just beyond the pale. 3 days, sure. 4 days, maybe. But 5 days in office is harsh. Top talent sees this as rude, lack of trust, unnecessary babysitting and middle managing. 3-4 days sure, good for networking, collaboration, etc. But give people 1 day a week flex at least to be trusted adults who can responsibly wfh.

Any days in office just to spend most of it on zoom calls is too many.

I don't understand why companies don't "get" this bit of it.

I'm fairly amenable to the idea of RTO. Office work with a team is just different, and I've worked almost exclusively remote my entire career.

If I were a high level leader in these giant orgs trying to implement RTO I'd 100% ban any internal Zoom calls for in-office days. If you are in the office you are in the office. Why take the worst possible form of communication ever invented and totally remove the entire point of people being in one spot?

If you absolutely must sacrifice an entire day’s productivity, dedicate one day each week exclusively to video calls.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#85

Post by jedberg »

coredog64 wrote: post #79
jedberg wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is odd that way. Everyone has a base that low, even VPs. All of the comp is in RSUs and hiring bonus for the first two years. Even someone with a total comp of $1M a year will have a base salary of $250K, and a hiring bonus of $700K a year, and then RSUs that in theory make up the rest, as long as AMZN goes up at least 15% per year. When the stock was on a tear, some people would make 2x or 3x their expected t…

Until circa 2022 (IIRC), the absolute maximum cash comp even for someone like Jassy was $180K. They lifted that and then the next year made the RSU comp even worse (e.g. limiting your upside on annual grants by focusing on out year 1)

It was $160K until 2022. I started in 2022 right after the limit was doubled, but they weren't giving anyone the full $320K because they "wanted to leave room for base salary growth".

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#86

Post by BoorishBears »

nixosbestos wrote: post #70
BoorishBears wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean you can read what I said in the worst possible faith, totally ok! I point out how I: - recognize there are people who do as well ( or better ) at home - emphasize it's significantly worse work I'm referring to - point out cases where it can work (and these are cases that any motivated person can find mind you, not every company has Amazon-sized) I guess it'd be really boneheaded to conflate all that with "sque…

What point are you making then? Someone stuck their gun under the desk so the school banning gum is entirely fair and reasonable? What if, and this is crazy, you fired them for bad performance the same way you would if they started slacking coming into work. This smells like middle manager puedo justification so bad I can't stand it.

> This smells like middle manager puedo justification

Feel free to read up on my path so far, but you'll be disappointed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45134398

> Someone stuck their gum under the desk so the school banning gum is entirely fair and reasonable?

Assume you mean gum, and yes if we're scraping gum off the underside of desks every night, please for the love of Christ ban the gum: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32090420

> What if, and this is crazy, you fired them for bad performance the same way you would if they started slacking coming into work.

I don't know if you're in the Bay Area and talk to people in tech, but they're increasingly doing that.

But firing is disruptive and expensive, and it's not like all these people are inherently incapable of doing their jobs. It just turns out some aspect of the office thing everyone (even myself if you read the first post) thought was unimportant turned out to matter a bit more than expected.

-

Honestly it's crazy this is even contentious 5 years post-COVID: saying WFH works for some people, works for orgs where there's good alignment-and works better at smaller scale while properties inherent to larger organizations cause WFH to break down specifically in large orgs really shouldn't be controversial.

But if the mentality that thinking about more than collecting a check makes you a middle-manager is as common as these replies imply, it makes sense.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#87

Post by mrheosuper »

throwaway0223 wrote: post #66
api wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any days defeats much of the purpose IMHO, which is to allow people to escape the real estate cost trap cities and actually build wealth. If a company said I had to move back to a high cost city, I’d demand like double the salary. Not like I’d be keeping any of it. They should just skip the middleman and cut checks directly to existing homeowners and property speculators. It helps on both sides too. If a bunch of dev…

If you believe in fully remote work, and think that companies should not pay double to have employees in HCOL locations: why would you hire in a crazily expensive market like the US in the first place? If everyone is remote, why not put your employees in Costa Rica? Or São Paulo? Colombia? Heck, even Canada is cheaper than many places in the US. And we're only talking about timezone-aligned markets. You can also cons…

>You can also consider Poland, or India, and now you can hire a lot more resources for the same cost.

You are onto something here.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#88

Post by grahameb »

themafia wrote: post #20
BoorishBears wrote: post #3

My feelings on significant WFH have gone around from thinking it's a no brainer to accepting that it's not really doable for large companies (large headcount wise at least). It sucks, but I've found that the number of people who work as well (or even better!) from the home is not zero, but the number of people who claim there's no difference and then end up doing significantly worse work, become a massive pain to get…

I think companies see WFH as a huge employee benefit and expect that they'll reduce their wage expectations accordingly. I think most employees see WFH as the only logical solution in a society with high speed internet readily available. It's a bummer these corporations spent so lavishly on their campuses in the 2010s. Now they want to throw good money after bad trying to save face on this strategic blunder. It's sim…

Here's a quote from that book, 'The Road Ahead':

> Corporations will redesign their nervous systems to rely on the networks that reach every member of the organization and beyond into the world of suppliers, consultants and customers."

I don't think that's far off from anticipating (in incredibly broad terms) what's in view in this discussion?

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#89

Post by 15123123aa »

technion wrote: post #77
randycupertino wrote: post #6

5 days a week RTO is just beyond the pale. 3 days, sure. 4 days, maybe. But 5 days in office is harsh. Top talent sees this as rude, lack of trust, unnecessary babysitting and middle managing. 3-4 days sure, good for networking, collaboration, etc. But give people 1 day a week flex at least to be trusted adults who can responsibly wfh.

I have no idea how i used to manage with five days in office. I am currently using myunch hour to see a doctor. A few weeks back I needed to see a plumber, and before that an electrician. Its five seconds out of the work day let them in and send them on their way but I guess we're looking at burning annual leave if I was stuck in office.

I think before that, we just postpone making this appointments until our home issue became much worse ( health, house maintenance, child-care, etc... ). I notice my house smelling much nicer just due to weekly cleaning instead of every 2-3 weeks.

Re: Amazon RTO policy is costing it top tech talent, according to internal document

#90

Post by GenerocUsername »

throwaway0223 wrote: post #66
api wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any days defeats much of the purpose IMHO, which is to allow people to escape the real estate cost trap cities and actually build wealth. If a company said I had to move back to a high cost city, I’d demand like double the salary. Not like I’d be keeping any of it. They should just skip the middleman and cut checks directly to existing homeowners and property speculators. It helps on both sides too. If a bunch of dev…

If you believe in fully remote work, and think that companies should not pay double to have employees in HCOL locations: why would you hire in a crazily expensive market like the US in the first place? If everyone is remote, why not put your employees in Costa Rica? Or São Paulo? Colombia? Heck, even Canada is cheaper than many places in the US. And we're only talking about timezone-aligned markets. You can also cons…

Hey if we can hire them there instead of importing then here I might be onboard for this... Oh wait, most companies are doing both regardless
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