This week, a reminder email was sent to employees who didn't work on-site at least three times a week.
Amazon warns workers to come back into the office::This week, a reminder email was sent to employees who didn't work on-site at least three times a week.
I'm not expecting rationality, but I'm expecting a somewhat consistent strategy. If a company makes decisions the same way five times, I expect them to make decisions the same way the sixth.
But you're not pointing out anything about consistency? You just implied Amazon and Zoom making the same decision means they had some level of knowledge about undefined "issues."
I've said Amazon and Zoom likely have internal data driving this decision.
Also, per a lot of documentation, Amazon focuses a lot on efficiency with metrics and will do whatever to make those metrics go up. So, in Amazon's case, I can't imagine the company making a decision to push efficiently metrics down just to fill an office.
At least you've proposed a possible reason that would make sense in some companies.
However, Amazon has routinely burnt out employees and hired replacements. Loyalty doesn't seem to be rewarded at Amazon, so I don't know why they would institute a loyalty test now.
It's like the old saying about how fascists cannibalize themselves, even if Amazon leadership hasn't shown that they value loyalty it's probably still a very sought after trait among their employees since the loyal ones grumble the least, true believers are always the biggest enablers in cults, and HR operates very similar the part of cult leadership that maintains cult discipline and beliefs, they're the corporate true believers, and loyalty is always the most sought after trait in cultists.
But hey it's just a theory, I don't work for Amazon and I doubt I ever would, but I do know quite a few people who do and from their stories they make it sound very similar to places like Walmart in terms of culture and not giving a fuck about their employees.
Eh, but even some of those reasons can be absolutely plausible, for instance the theory behind RTO being about middle management trying to justify their existence, because most middle management positions are just glorified babysitters with too much power and time on their hands. Another plausible one is the narcissism of the executive class, there's plenty of executives writing about how their "people" provide them with "energy" and that they feel lost without their involuntary audience. Then there's the plausibility of the point about property values, companies that own their properties understand that the property itself is an investment, and in business your entire goal is to reach that almighty ROI, return on investment, so not only do empty unused offices harm that, but so do falling property values.
There's almost always an inkling of plausibility in any theory, that's one of the reasons why so many people fall to the attraction of conspiracy theories, but at the end of the day you have to remember that these are just people, and people are often selfish and not always selfish for the same reasons, we all have things that are more important to us than aren't as important to others.
But then you can also say that companies want people back because they are secretly harvesting their skin cells at work to see to alien larvae. It is a theory.
The problem with Amazon choosing to do this compared to nameless companies is that a lot of Amazon's work culture has been written about, and not all of that written about them is positive.
Amazon as a company is obsessed with driving down costs holding managers accountable to well defined metrics which filters down to everyone. This is the reason why warehouse people let others die in the warehouse.
The argument that Amazon, this company obsessed with metrics, is going to tell people to come into the office even though they are more productive at home, doesn't make sense.
Lol doing the old Tucker Carlson "I'm just asking questions here" I see.
Absolutely all just theories, but my point in my reply wasn't solely about Amazon.
So about Amazon, as you said, a company obsessed with driving down costs and metrics, so why would they force people who are more productive at home, back into the office? It's simple, people are making those decisions, and they're not making good sound decisions based on metrics, they're making decisions based on control, they're making decisions based on the current trend within the executive class, and they're making decisions based on politics. No doubt there's a shitload of empty suit kiss asses saying "look boss we got the people back into the office!" while looking for headpats.
Overall the return to work trend has been in the works for a while, the Wall Street Journal (now Newscorp owned) and other business based media outlets have been putting out negative articles about WFH since the trend began, and the dumb business people who wind as middle and upper management yes men take these media outlets as gospel, and those kiss asses are the foot soldiers in the class war being waged, so you know they were pushing for return to work every chance they had to voice their opinions on the WFH topic. These capitalist pawns basically just see WFH as them losing power over those WFH folks, it all boils down to narcissistic and entitled people wanting more control over us.
They don’t reward loyalty. They profit from it. Their greed is catching on to them though. They have mostly gone through all the available workers for warehouses and they know they are running out of people willing to give them a chance. Most people know it’s a shit place for engineers as well.
Remote worker are probably much cheaper in the long run, but these companies typically lock in long-term leases in commercial real estate. The benefits might not be realized before 5-10 years.
There are zero things I need in the office to do my job and I get everything done when I WFH in a timely and efficient manner. So what if I also get to watch old movies while I do it? I get it done and I do it well. Bosses just want to monitor your life because they think if you take so much as a minute off, you're costing them money and it's utter bullshit.