- cross-posted to:
- technews@radiation.party
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently told employees that those who do not want to return to the office at least three days a week should consider finding employment elsewhere. According to a recording obtained by Insider, Jassy stated “It’s past the time to disagree and commit,” adding that if employees cannot commit to the new hybrid work model, “it’s probably not going to work out for you at Amazon.” He characterized the decision to have employees return to the office part-time as a “judgment call.” Notably, Jassy said employees are free to leave if they do not want to comply with the hybrid work requirement. This makes clear that Amazon has not changed its stance on returning to office work despite some employees preferring full remote arrangements.
- Scrubbles ( @scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech ) English79•1 year ago
Easy layoffs without having to pay severance, can just claim they refused to move.
Amazon built up half the property in south lake union and Bellevue and now they’re trying to justify why they did that. God knows they could have saved a ton of money if they hadn’t.
- FaceDeer ( @FaceDeer@kbin.social ) 29•1 year ago
Now’s the perfect time for competitors to arise that haven’t wasted enormous amounts of resources on that kind of thing, and who can draw on a nice big pool of talent looking to leave Amazon.
- ConstableJelly ( @ConstableJelly@beehaw.org ) 78•1 year ago
If I were predisposed toward conspiracies I would definitely be convinced by now that every medium-to-large business owner in the country was part of a secret cabal who made a pact to demand return to office for whatever terrible reason sounded good to them.
My own workplace is mandating a hybrid model for any employees within 30 miles of an office after “much research, discussion, and debate with employees.” They’ve typically been very reasonable and generous to their workforce, and I just don’t understand what they’re thinking, honestly.
- Pete Hahnloser ( @Powderhorn@beehaw.org ) 46•1 year ago
As to conspiracies, it’s not really the businesses, it’s the property.
- Jaysyn ( @Jaysyn@kbin.social ) 17•1 year ago
My company leased their office & remote work has lead to a increase in production so we’re getting a smaller office & staying remote.
- Skwerls ( @Skwerls@discuss.tchncs.de ) 35•1 year ago
Hilariously, the data don’t back them up, my wife does research on this very topic for a company. The dollar signs do though, they have to justify the property expenditures.
- prole ( @prole@beehaw.org ) English17•1 year ago
Hilariously, the data don’t back them up, my wife does research on this very topic for a company. The dollar signs do though, they have to justify the property expenditures.
No. That’s sunk cost fallacy.
If they’ve already bought and paid for the buildings, they are not losing more money by not using them.
In fact, they probably save money on things like maintenance, overhead, security on physical sites when they’re not being used. They could also be renting those spaces out, or straight up selling.
- SkepticElliptic ( @SkepticElliptic@beehaw.org ) 5•1 year ago
It’s hurting the commuting industry.
- aname ( @lauha@lemmy.one ) 7•1 year ago
Smart company would be selling the property before the prices crash
- worfamerryman ( @worfamerryman@beehaw.org ) English12•1 year ago
Sell it to who?
- renard_roux ( @renard_roux@beehaw.org ) 10•1 year ago
- dingleberry ( @dingleberry@discuss.tchncs.de ) 16•1 year ago
Don’t most companies have Blackrock on their board, who had been buying real estate for the better part of the last 5 years.
- LoamImprovement ( @LoamImprovement@beehaw.org ) 16•1 year ago
whatever terrible reason sounded good to them
Commercial property values. They want the offices full so their investment retains value. Dassit.
- _s10e ( @_s10e@feddit.de ) 8•1 year ago
I don’t get this argument. Most business don’t own any property. The office buildings are rented.
- magnetosphere ( @HappyMeatbag@beehaw.org ) English6•1 year ago
From my (very limited) understanding, the underlying reason is the health of the national economy.
A bunch of businesses giving up their office space would destroy the commercial real estate market, and that could trigger another economic recession/depression. It could take the economy years to recover, costing companies billions, and bankrupting some of them. Even fierce competitors will work together in order to prevent that from happening. (I’m not sure how realistic that fear is; I’m just explaining their reasoning.)
So, while an individual corporation would benefit in the short term by moving to a building that’s only one third as big, the long term risks to the economy scare them off. In fact, the only reason working from home is still being discussed is because there’s a shortage of skilled workers. Companies can’t dictate terms quite as strongly as they could a few years ago. Employees see working from home as a major perk, or even a necessity. Inflexible companies invariably lose some of their best people, so they have to allow at least a few work from home options.
Personally, I like seeing corporations being forced to compromise.
It’s amazing how for a culture that fetishizes “freedom” we’re willing to accept a reality where you have to give it up for half your waking life just to live and provide for your family.
I wish we would stop.
- Gamey ( @gamey@feddit.rocks ) 23•1 year ago
What really amazes me as a european is that while I still think we have to work too much for our modern times we only do a fraction of your average work hours and that cases no issues whatsoever.
- EddoWagt ( @EddoWagt@feddit.nl ) 6•1 year ago
It’s almost as if working more is not necessarily more productive
- Boozilla ( @Boozilla@beehaw.org ) English53•1 year ago
“Disagree and commit” = do what I say or quit. Worker exploitation has many douchey buzz phrases.
- LoamImprovement ( @LoamImprovement@beehaw.org ) 24•1 year ago
It’s funny, because the original purpose of that phrase was “There is a period during which you can voice your concerns about new or changed ops and procedures, and once the dust has settled, you’ll feel better about what comes out of the oven because you had a hand in making it.” Instead, the new age Jack Welch management types saw the phrase and decided it means “You don’t have to like what we say but you have to obey it.”
Surprisingly, the latter interpretation does not lead to a happier healthier workplace with high retention rates. Who would’ve thought?
- Boozilla ( @Boozilla@beehaw.org ) English6•1 year ago
Thanks for the history, I am not surprised it evolved like that. Reminds me of Agile. It was a great concept that morphed into ‘micromanagement with extra steps’ in many shops.
- argv_minus_one ( @argv_minus_one@beehaw.org ) 2•1 year ago
It’s not intended to. It’s intended to make the CEO happy.
- CanadaPlus ( @CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org ) 2•1 year ago
I suspect that the natural next evolution is dropping the option to disagree, and requiring fake enthusiasm a la Walmart.
- Strawberry ( @Strawberry@lemmy.blahaj.zone ) 50•1 year ago
Dictatorship of the bourgeoisie in action in the land of the free
- FaceDeer ( @FaceDeer@kbin.social ) 45•1 year ago
Notably, Jassy said employees are free to leave if they do not want to comply with the hybrid work requirement.
This sort of statement always makes me raise an eyebrow. There are very few situations where employees are not “free to leave” and most of them are not good.
- obviouspornalt ( @obviouspornalt@lemmynsfw.com ) 15•1 year ago
Amazon and several other companies hired like crazy during pandemic. Now they’re trying to shrink the workforce via a combination of outright layoffs and tight policies to make anyone on the verge of quitting go ahead and do it so they don’t have to pay severance.
Bonus points for shedding older, more experienced, more expensive employees vs. cheaper early in career employees.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1324557/quarterly-number-of-amazon-employees/
- mwguy ( @mwguy@infosec.pub ) 31•1 year ago
Maybe it’s time to consider alternative cloud providers at work. AWS is pretty good but they’re going to alienate a ton of talented engineers by doing this.
- maegul (he/they) ( @maegul@lemmy.ml ) English14•1 year ago
This is an important point. What cloud providers are flexible on engineer working conditions? I’d imagine they’d all be smaller scale providers?
- AttackPanda ( @AttackPanda@programming.dev ) 2•1 year ago
I know from a friend that works for GCP that they are up his ass to get back into the office and have been for a while. Not sure on Azure but I think you’re right that it’s probably going to be small cap places.
- mwguy ( @mwguy@infosec.pub ) 2•1 year ago
Brain drain is terminal for a technology product (most of the time). In the short term I’ll focus on making our products portable (migrating ec2 init scripts to docker, using frameworks for server less instead of using direct apis etc…). And when the time comes switch to whatever is best.
- 1984 ( @1984@lemmy.today ) 29•1 year ago
The mentality of these people are exactly like slave owners.
- diskmaster23 ( @diskmaster23@lemmy.one ) English8•1 year ago
Time for unionized office work
- astraeus ( @astraeus@programming.dev ) 27•1 year ago
Hilarious that the company that pioneered cloud solutions and made working from home for a ton of people ridiculously easier decides that their employees don’t deserve to work from home. Something something corporate office real estate crisis.
- Pete Hahnloser ( @Powderhorn@beehaw.org ) 36•1 year ago
If we’ve learned anything from recent real estate crises, it’s that once again, the losses will be socialized, with golden parachutes aplenty.
- astraeus ( @astraeus@programming.dev ) 6•1 year ago
Reminds me of how I read awhile back that commercial mortgage-backed securities are pretty prevalent in today’s major investment portfolios. This more recent article reads to me like, “don’t panic, everything is fine, nothing to worry about here”
- Blake (he/him) ( @bl4kers@beehaw.org ) English5•1 year ago
Wait until you hear about Zoom: https://www.businessinsider.com/zoom-ceo-employees-return-to-office-2023-8?op=1
- astraeus ( @astraeus@programming.dev ) 4•1 year ago
Tbf this is the same guy that absolutely raked his own company’s flagship software over the coals while telling them it’s time to come back to the office
- Eryn6844 ( @Eryn6844@beehaw.org ) 21•1 year ago
guys come work for my company we have embraced the work remote life style.
- Takatakatakatakatak ( @bandario@lemmy.dbzer0.com ) English6•1 year ago
Alright I’m in. What do we do for the world?
- Killing_Spark ( @Killing_Spark@feddit.de ) 18•1 year ago
Honestly as long as it’s not “Accrue money for bezos so he can shoot his phallic rockets into space” it’s probably better for the world.
- snowbell ( @snowbell@beehaw.org ) English2•1 year ago
I’m in
- Jordan Lund ( @jordanlund@lemmy.one ) English18•1 year ago
“You’re coming into the office too, right?”
. . .
“You’ll be in the office too?”
- mayooooo ( @MayonnaiseArch@beehaw.org ) 11•1 year ago
If somebody told me it’s past time to commit I’d commit to calling them a cunt. What a horrible horriblw cunt
- marco ( @marco@beehaw.org ) English10•1 year ago
Am I glad I got out of that toxic place.
- GBU_28 ( @GBU_28@lemm.ee ) English10•1 year ago
Startups wringing their hands in anticipation
- ndguardian ( @ndguardian@lemmy.studio ) English3•1 year ago
I’m lucky in that my employer went the opposite direction. Downsizing our local office and just letting us all be 100% remote. We’re a geographically distributed group so it doesn’t make sense to enforce office requirements.