Amazon is requiring some corporate workers to relocate as part of its return-to-office mandate, triggering concerns among some of its still-remote employees.
The Seattle-based e-commerce giant began requiring employees to work from the office at least three days a week in May, a switch from its previous policy that allowed managers to decide for their teams how often workers must be in person versus remote.
Two months later, Amazon is requiring some workers to move to be closer to one of its offices, according to internal messages shared with The Seattle Times.
Amazon confirmed on Friday that some workers would have to relocate.
According to Slack messages from several workers, some Amazon employees who had been considered virtual are now being asked to relocate. One worker wrote they had been given three options: Go to an office nearby, relocate to one of Amazon’s hubs or resign. Another worker wrote they were told to confirm whether they would relocate to Seattle specifically. If not, they could apply for an exception to work in another nearby office, but “remote is not an option.”
In response to the new requirements, one worker said in a Slack message they planned to update their resume and look for new jobs. Another was concerned about caretaking responsibilities. Yet another was worried about other colleagues resigning because of this requirement, leaving them with more work to cover on their own.
“It feels so unreal it’s like a fever dream,” one worker wrote on Slack. “None of us knows how to process this news.”
Employees who are asked to relocate will be eligible for relocation benefits, Amazon said Friday. The company has an exception request process in place and will consider requests on a case-by-case basis.
Spokesperson Brad Glasser said employees in Amazon’s offices and businesses surrounding its buildings have told the company “there’s more energy, collaboration and connections” since the return-to-office mandate went into effect.
“We continue to look at the best ways to bring more teams together in the same locations, and we’ll communicate directly with employees as we make decisions that affect them,” Glasser said.
CEO Andy Jassy told employees in May that the company had observed it was easier to “learn, model, practice and strengthen our culture when we’re in the office together most of the time and surrounded by our colleagues.”
In Seattle, business leaders, politicians and some advocacy groups hoped Amazon’s return to the office would kick-start downtown’s stalled recovery. Other employers may follow Amazon’s lead, and the presence of roughly 55,000 well-paid workers could boost the restaurants and retailers surrounding Amazon’s campus, and improve public safety, foot traffic and revenue.
Since Amazon’s return to the office in May, South Lake Union has seen an 82% increase in foot traffic and an 86% increase in credit card transactions at restaurants, according to data shared from Amazon this week.
Some Amazon employees were excited to return to in-person work and have a guarantee that they’d see more of their colleagues, but others felt the company should have kept the flexibility of its prior policy. Some workers had concerns about the time and expense of a commute, others had child care and caregiver responsibilities, and some worried about the increased health risk of working in an office.
In May, corporate employees temporarily walked off the job in protest of both the return-to-office mandate and Amazon’s impact on the climate. Organizers said nearly 2,000 people participated in the walkout across the company locations. Amazon estimated about 300 people gathered outside its South Lake Union headquarters.
Not all of Amazon’s offices are ready to accommodate a return-to-office mandate, the company has said. While all its offices are open, Amazon is still working to prepare some for the scale of workers returning. According to a “building readiness” document from April, some offices won’t open until September or October. All of Amazon’s offices in the Puget Sound region were scheduled to open by now.
