Amazon revises policy; will allow mix of working at home and in office

Amazon has altered its plans to require all corporate employees to work in the office full time after COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. 

In a blog post, the retail giant that it expects those employees to work three days in the office, with the flexibility to work remotely up to two days a week. Leadership teams will determine what days employees will be required to work from the office, the company said.

Corporate employees who want to work in the office less than three days per week (but are still able to commute into their assigned office as needed) will be able to apply for an exception from their VP.  Also, some employees “for whom working away from the office is an effective option” will have the option to work fully remotely up to four weeks per year.

“Our thinking is predicated on what we believe will be most beneficial for customers, while also trying to give employees more flexibility in their work environment and lives,” Amazon stated. “We recognize this is an unprecedented time. We’re all figuring out how work will keep evolving and what will be best for customers, our teams, and individual employees.”

Amazon noted in the blog post that employees who were mostly remote pre-COVID, such as some sales and customer service roles,  will remain working remote. Employees in roles which require onsite work, such as hardware engineers and frontline operations, will continue to work onsite.

In March, Amazon said its goal was to return to an “office-centric” culture and that it expected some U.S. employees to return to the office this summer, with most back by early fall.  

Amazon’s new flexible work policy  is similar to those announced by many other large tech companies. In May, Google said  that it expected roughly 60% of its workforce to come into the office a few days a week, with 20% to work from home full time. Facebook and Microsoft are both allowing most workers to stay remote if they want.