Amazon CEO orders return to office in 5 days

Previously, Amazon required employees to make badges in at least three days, depending on their team’s requirements. Amazon’s back-to-office plans will make exceptions for extenuating circumstances or cases where managers have already approved a completely remote position, Jassy said in a memo to employees Monday.

“We understand that some of our colleagues may have their personal lives set up in such a way that returning to the office consistently five days a week will require some adjustments,” Jassy said in the message, which was also posted on Amazon’s corporate blog.

Jassy also tracks bureaucracy and layers of management as Amazon has grown in size over the past decade. Stories of endless debates about memos, pointless meetings and approval levels have become commonplace at a company that models itself as a collection of teams tasked with operating like startups.

Every major Amazon organization will need to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by 15 percent by the end of March 2025, Jassy said. He also announced a red tape advisory for employees to voice concerns about unnecessary processes.

“Keeping your culture strong is not a birthright,” Jassy wrote. “You have to work at it all the time.”

(Updates with announcement details starting in the third paragraph.)