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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

#71

Post by PixelOfDeath »

ryandrake wrote: post #54
ashtonkem wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find that it makes sense if you begin imagining non-productivity reasons why execs want workers back. Sunk cost fallacy over an expensive office is a regular guess, personally I suspect that it's got to be quite a rush to see hundreds of people working at your direction in an office and remote work cannot replace that. That or bad management techniques work better in person.

It's astonishing how unified the message is, across big tech and smaller tech leaderships. It's like every CEO is reading a script from the same business magazine: "We understand how important it is for employees to return to the office and we can't wait to make this happen! We know that this is the One True Way to work, and that everyone is looking forward to it! We must get Back To Normal and the only way to do it…

Maybe the are used to collect all the suffering by sitting over the main office with all its cubicles.

Maybe they are afraid of a way more aggressive competition for workers and what they have to pay them. Considering they now could switch the workplace via different login credentials.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#72

Post by spamizbad »

ripper1138 wrote: post #42
josiahsiegel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Curious, what makes you think productivity has increased at your job? Like how are you measuring that?

Anecdotally, we've seen more velocity in Jira from the same engineers - about 20% more. However, I've also noticed people are working more hours, which is more challenging to quantify. Hour-by-hour productivity may be a wash. Regardless, more stuff is getting done, and employee sentiment seems to remain the same as pre/post pandemic.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#73

Post by jedberg »

kimbernator wrote: post #61
roland35 wrote: post #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 tru…

As someone working for a company I like while living in a place that I'd rather not, there's no more annoying thing for me to dwell on than the fact that the only thing standing between me and moving is the fact that my employer expects me to be in the office 2 days/month.

2 days a month seems like it could be handled pretty well with an airplane? Like even if the commute were six hours and you had to stay in a hotel, that doesn't seem awful twice a month if the other 28 days you get to live somewhere that makes you happy.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#74

Post by Spivak »

bowmessage wrote: post #52
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…

Another nail in the coffin for downtown Seattle's recovery?

It's not as doom and gloom as you might think. Without such a huge wealth gap between the people who work for the downtown industry and tertiary business you might get lucky and have a cultural resurgence as artists, musicians, restauranteurs, local retail, etc etc can afford to live and set up shop downtown again.

People seem to forget that outside of the supermega metro areas the typical downtown/financial districts are basically dead.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#76

Post by yawaworht1978 »

I don't know why people say Amazon has a bad reputation as an employee. You have to consider there is a million employees and it most likely depends on department, location, job. I personally know a couple handful Amazon employees who are all most happy and treated well. Some of them have previously been at google and they say Amazon is the better employer period.

In some jurisdictions they pay clear above industry standard.

All companies have good and bad aspects, some feel better in a startup , some feel better in a corporate giant.

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#77

Post by jedberg »

> as long as they are able to commute to the office when necessary

This is they key right here. Basically you still have to live within a few hours drive of Seattle or Palo Alto, or even less depending on your patience.

Still better than five days a week in the office though!

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#78

Post by renewiltord »

ryandrake wrote: post #54
ashtonkem wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find that it makes sense if you begin imagining non-productivity reasons why execs want workers back. Sunk cost fallacy over an expensive office is a regular guess, personally I suspect that it's got to be quite a rush to see hundreds of people working at your direction in an office and remote work cannot replace that. That or bad management techniques work better in person.

It's astonishing how unified the message is, across big tech and smaller tech leaderships. It's like every CEO is reading a script from the same business magazine: "We understand how important it is for employees to return to the office and we can't wait to make this happen! We know that this is the One True Way to work, and that everyone is looking forward to it! We must get Back To Normal and the only way to do it…

What alternative hypotheses have you considered and dismissed to explain why so many CEOs agree on this approach?

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#79

Post by ClumsyPilot »

rzanella wrote: post #62
jorblumesea wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I interviewed for Amazon Brazil once, it felt like I was being questioned by the police as if in a movie: - 4 straight hours inside a room - every hour the interviewer changed - got asked the same questions over and over again I was quite upset that I didn't pass... couple weeks later I was not, what a shitty experience it was.

"- 4 straight hours inside a room

- every hour the interviewer changed

- got asked the same questions over and over again"

It's the same in UK, at least they standardised it!

Re: Amazon will allow many employees to work remotely indefinitely

#80

Post by ghaff »

alasdair_ wrote: post #33
arnvald wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It depends on the state but some states, as you say, want you to file for even working a single day and states are apparently really starting to crack down.
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