Amazon Allows Managers To Terminate Employees in Office-Attendance Noncompliance 149
New submitter flashpoint31415 writes: Amazon is now giving managers leeway to effectively fire employees who fail to meet the company's three-times-a-week, return-to-office mandate.
The guidelines tell managers to first hold a private conversation with employees who don't comply with the three-times-a-week requirement. Then, managers have to document the discussion in a follow-up email. If the employee continues to refuse to come in, the manager should hold another meeting, and if needed, take disciplinary action that includes a termination of employment.
Giving managers the ability to fire employees for non-compliance is the strongest measure Amazon has taken over its return-to-office policy.
The guidelines tell managers to first hold a private conversation with employees who don't comply with the three-times-a-week requirement. Then, managers have to document the discussion in a follow-up email. If the employee continues to refuse to come in, the manager should hold another meeting, and if needed, take disciplinary action that includes a termination of employment.
Giving managers the ability to fire employees for non-compliance is the strongest measure Amazon has taken over its return-to-office policy.
I guess this matters if you work for Amazon (Score:4, Interesting)
Why should anyone else care?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe you depend on AWS and wonder if they can attract top talent to justify their premium price?
Seems like no if this article is true.
Re:I guess this matters if you work for Amazon (Score:5, Funny)
Why should anyone else care?
It's a very clickbaity thing on Slashdot. We have a lot of people here that really don't want to work outside their homes ever again, and it makes for some arguments.
Re: I guess this matters if you work for Amazon (Score:5, Insightful)
"We live in a corporate autocracy."
Well of course you do. A corporation is a hierarchical power structure. It's legally designed that way, with power delegated in increasing granularity downwards from the "top". If you're complaint is that this is bad, don't work for a corporation. It's so thoroughly baked in, that pointing it out seems fruitless.
It's like buying a Ferrari and complaining that it's no good at hauling gravel.
Re: (Score:2)
Sheesh...
All you need is the proper trailer hitch...
[rolls eyes]
Re: I guess this matters if you work for Amazon (Score:3)
No, that's not what they were talking about. They meant the corporations control the entire country and/or world. In a sane system nobody who doesn't have to be in the office would be fired for not being there, because WfH reduces energy consumption, traffic, pollution, stress, etc.
Management being tone deaf? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this management being insecure about trusting their employees? Because it sure sounds like it. Management being tone deaf is a symptom of a bigger problem.
I feel like some PHB is simply ticking some checkbox and not looking at the overall BIG picture of mental health of the employees. While it is much easier to have "water cooler talk" in person it can happen in Slack, Teams, Discord, etc. as well it just takes a corporate culture shift to enable it. i.e. A weekly "Hang Out" thread where people can discuss what problems they are working on with others.
I've been working remote for the past 10+ years. The fact that I don't have to waste ~2 hours a day of my life commuting is something I can't put a dollar amount on. Technically it is part of my salary but after a certain point the money isn't what is important the amenities / perks are.
"Is this job 100% remote? No, OK, next!"
Re:Management being tone deaf? (Score:5, Insightful)
The advantage of having 'water cooler talk' online in a text medium is that the guy who wasn't AT the water cooler can still follow the conversation.
Hell, management should love being able to follow those water cooler talks to make sure they don't go in the wrong direction.
Re: (Score:3)
You mean you destroy the emotional guilt-tripping that you feel when you quit and leave the rest of the team in the crap their managers cause.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't underestimate that. People are people and people tend to have personal, emotional attachment to their colleagues. Which is also a reason they want you in the office. Yes, you could quit, but then Bob and Alice have to pick up the slack and work even harder than they already do, can you accept responsibility for that?
I have a pretty good relation with my immediate superior. It would be way harder for me to tell him that I sure as fuck won't come in 3 days a week than it would be to some anonymous mail
Re:Management being tone deaf? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Is this job 100% remote? No, OK, next!"
Love it. That's exactly the right approach. It's direct, honest, and fair.
Is this management being insecure about trusting their employees?
PLENTY of employees can't be trusted. That's just... people.
Well, I'll amend that. Most people can be trusted not to steal or otherwise be directly (and criminally) problematic. But... many, many people fail on giving the full measure of their time even when they're being watched, let alone when they're not.
Re: (Score:3)
But... many, many people fail on giving the full measure of their time even when they're being watched, let alone when they're not.
If someone isn't getting enough work done, fire them for not getting enough work done.
Re: (Score:2)
But... many, many people fail on giving the full measure of their time even when they're being watched, let alone when they're not.
Sure, but management cannot fix that. The problem is that while you can enforce the worker spending their time, you cannot enforce any of that time actually being productive. At the same time, the only thing a real capitalist should ever care about is the worker productivity and not how much time they need to create that productivity.
Re: (Score:2)
One should examine the reason for this. Because in my experience, honesty pays better dividends in the long run.
Re: (Score:2)
For every worker that is not easily replaced, sure. For the others, probably not. But with more and more automation, workers are becoming harder to replace.
Re: (Score:2)
One should examine the reason for this. Because in my experience, honesty pays better dividends in the long run.
That depends on your capacity / capabilities. Every human is different.
A quote I like - If you are free, then every human is not equal. If every human is equal, then you are not free.
You also need to measure effort put in and reward. Theft in many cases nets you a better dollar per hour than working a minimum wage job. Even though the job may grant you a better net monthly.
Similar to running your own business, you take more risk, but your dollar per hour can go up significantly.
If you have the capability ho
Re:Not my fault (Score:3)
Your big fancy office building is losing value.
Re: (Score:2)
Most large companies got out of owning the buildings that they occupy years ago. It was a huge push back in the 1990s and 2000s - "We're not landlords." They don't own the risk.
What they might have is long term leases for space they aren't using. But the building as an asset is less common than it used to be, and the devaluation of it isn't that big a deal.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that's true. Not a lot of people have a use for an Amazon-sized warehouse, and fewer still are likely to build one for a sole possible renter.
Re: (Score:2)
The Return to Office policy is for corporate offices, not warehouses. Obviously most warehouse work has to be done on site, and that never changed. But office work, including software development, can be easily done remotely, but your 8or your investor's) fancy downtown building would lose value then. And all the economy around downtown workers would die with it. And cities would have deserted downtowns and would discover that people were coming there because forced to, not because they're nice. Not to ment
Re: (Score:2)
You might want to tell me why I should give a fuck whether the property of the company I work for is worth a nickel or a dime.
Re: (Score:2)
You might want to tell me why I should give a fuck whether the property of the company I work for is worth a nickel or a dime.
The company may be using it as collateral for loans that then allow it to operate effectively. If the value of the collateral falls too much the bank may call in the loans requiring cuts such as laying people off.
Re: (Score:3)
ok.
NEXT!
Quite seriously, if a company can't be bothered to give a fuck about me, I can't be bothered to give a fuck about it. We're moving into a seller's market with workforce, and that means there's more companies needing talent than there is talent.
Re: (Score:2)
Your big fancy office building is losing value.
Well, Amazon seems to have a lot invested in those fancy new Seattle spheres [wikipedia.org].
Re:Management being tone deaf? (Score:4, Interesting)
We live in a world where people under the age of 25 (read future employees) are literally on their phones 24/7, their entire life is online and they expect the rest of the world to be online too. You couple that with the increasing ability to interact remotely (AR, VR, etc) and anyone who is looking even 10 years ahead will tell you in-office work is on its last legs. Ironically WeWork was on to something with shared office spaces, conference rooms etc.
The world of corporate work is going to be you get together with your team in a WeWork type environment a few days a month for meetings and planning etc, then leave to work individually somewhere else, another city, another country, your house, wherever. Those people are definitely not commuting 3x per week to bang on a keyboard all day.
Re:Management being tone deaf? (Score:5, Funny)
Also, under-25s now think that 'literally' means 'figuratively'.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Here [youtube.com] is your song.
Re: (Score:2)
This is possibly true of a certain subset of work, most of which is almost inconsequential in people's real, daily lives.
People must be physically present to operate water plants, power plants, doctor's offices, construction, plumbing, electrical, fabrication, material handling, and the list goes on and on. Even in IT, somebody has to replace faulty hardware, route and trace cables, work on the HVAC, perform maintenance on the UPS, and so on.
"Oh no, this website is spotty!"
vs
"I can't see how bad the break i
Re: (Score:2)
C'mon, lets use a bit of common sense.
People whose jobs require them to physically be there (brick layer, etc)...are ALREADY back "in the office" or wherever they are to physically work.
What's being mostly argued here are jobs like ...SysAdmin...DBA...coder...the IT fields where doing it remotely is NO problem.
And, as mo
Re: (Score:2)
C'mon, lets use a bit of common sense. People whose jobs require them to physically be there (brick layer, etc)...are ALREADY back "in the office" or wherever they are to physically work. What's being mostly argued here are jobs like ...SysAdmin...DBA...coder...the IT fields where doing it remotely is NO problem.
Typical slashdot thinking: there are only two types of jobs, SysAdmin and coder jobs, or bricklaying and equivalent jobs (and really the coder jobs are the only ones worth talking about.)
There exist other types of jobs.
And it's not binary that either you can do your job remotely or you can't. There exist jobs where doing it remotely is possible, but the job works better in person. There exist jobs where it's useful to be present in person some of the time, but not 100% of the time.
And there exist other typ
Re: (Score:2)
People must be physically present to operate water plants, power plants, doctor's offices, construction, plumbing, electrical, fabrication, material handling, and the list goes on and on.
/me looks at the address bar
Hm, this is Slashdot...
Re:Management being tone deaf? (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing I noticed is that they didn't come down with a company-wide policy that anybody who doesn't show up in person three times a week is automatically fired (which is what I'd expect if they were being mean and arbitrary); rather, they're giving managers discretionary leeway to fire employees who don't show up. Maybe I'm naive, but to me, that suggests that _if_ the managers are halfway decent, then it's going to be an "if not showing up means your job isn't getting done right" situation, which seems, at least potentially, reasonable. (Admittedly, we all know there's no guarantee that all of the managers are great; but frankly, if your boss is bad and unreasonable and wants to make your life suck, that's a problem with or without this policy.)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Every time I read some of that "people only work if they're under the microscope" bull, I can't help but think of the religious loonies that say the only thing that you need god to not be a raping, pillaging and murdering lunatic.
If that's true for you, then BY PETE'S SAKE, never lose your faith!
Likewise, if you can't be trusted to actually work when you're not under surveillance, you should work at an office.
But I can only tell you the same I tell the religious nutters: Just because you need that doesn't m
Re: (Score:2)
It's more simple than that.
Its a way to have a layoff without having to report it
Amazon has run the numbers and knows that X thousand employees won't come in.
Re: (Score:2)
>While it is much easier to have "water cooler talk" in person it can happen in Slack, Teams, Discord, etc. as well it just takes a corporate culture shift to enable it. i.e. A weekly "Hang Out" thread where people can discuss what problems they are working on with others.
It doesn't work that way. Much of 'water cooler' conversation is incidental and unplanned, happening as chance encounters while doing something else.
So how do you do this online? Have hundreds of people from different teams dropped into
Re: (Score:2)
I'm sure there are some folks who won't mind wasting countless hours in traffic to make a few bucks, but I'm not one of them.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well, a million a day might sway me...
I could stomach doing that for a month and retire.
Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean, I can totally understand if you want to work from home and that's a deal breaker, and you can disagree with return to office policies. However, if the employer says "you must be in the office 3 times per week" and you refuse obviously you should expect your employment to be terminated.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I came to say exactly this. Thank you.
Your employer may be as dumb as a sack of brick, if they mandate something (legal) and you refuse to obey, they're well within their right to get rid of you.
I have no great love for Amazon and I never miss an opportunity to criticize their appalling workplace practices. But in this instance, I side with them.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I came to say exactly this. Thank you.
Your employer may be as dumb as a sack of brick, if they mandate something (legal) and you refuse to obey, they're well within their right to get rid of you.
That's actually not true universally. If a company orders you to divorce your wife, it isn't illegal for you to divorce your wife, but the company would never get away with firing you for not doing it. If a company orders you to sell your house and move into company-owned housing, they'd never get away with firing you for refusing. If a company orders you to mow your lawn shorter, not wear shorts on Saturday, or stop drinking on non-work days, they'll likely have problems. And mind you, some of those ex
Re: (Score:3)
Stellar pedantry The divorce thing is an awesomely silly non sequitur.
BUT! Your point about what happened during the pandemic, and the circumstances in place when hired, is absolutely important.
If you were hired in this period in a WFH capacity, and going to the office now is problematic, you have a definite legal footing for negotiation. Even if your contract didn't specify WFH, you can make the case that they are changing the "understood" terms of the contract, and that has real legal meaning.
However, if
Re: (Score:2)
I came to say exactly this. Thank you.
Your employer may be as dumb as a sack of brick, if they mandate something (legal) and you refuse to obey, they're well within their right to get rid of you.
That's actually not true universally. If a company orders you to divorce your wife, it isn't illegal for you to divorce your wife, but the company would never get away with firing you for not doing it.
Which is to say, it's illegal for the company to order you to, which is what he said.
Try to pay attention.
Re: (Score:3)
If a company orders you to divorce your wife... [and your other examples]
These wouldn't be construed as a valid condition of employment in any court on the planet. Sorry, those are horrible analogies.
And for employees who moved out of the area during the pandemic
Well, that was pretty stupid of them. Unless the company specifically said "this is permanent" when they sent their employees home, I'd say tough nuggets. My company specifically said "work from home means work from HOME", and was very clear it was temporary. Of course I'd rather work from home, but that's not what I agreed to when I was hired.
and doubly so for those hired while out of the area
This would imply that the original emp
Re: (Score:2)
And for employees who moved out of the area during the pandemic (and doubly so for those hired while out of the area), demanding that you suddenly pack up your stuff and move to another city or state to keep your job arguably goes well outside the bounds of reasonableness.
I dont think any court would ever find that to be the case. It is not at all unusual for a company to change physical locations for instance and I've never heard of one being successfully sued over them telling their workers to move or quit.
Re: (Score:2)
I disagree with the moving issue. At least where I work, from home for the last few years, there was always some stipulations for this agreement. 1) I had to be able to come into the office if need be. If I moved across the state or the country, it was on me. 2) The job is not listed as a 100% work from home job. It has the added benefit of the potential to work from home. So in my case of employment, if I moved then it's on me. I'm sure them lawyers at Amazon were smart enough to think about this.
Re: (Score:2)
If a company orders you to mow your lawn shorter, not wear shorts on Saturday, or stop drinking on non-work days, they'll likely have problems.
Yeah, they'd get into trouble for encroaching on the turf of HOAs.
Re:Duh (Score:4, Insightful)
That is not actually the question here. Obviously they can basically always terminate you when you do not fit the job anymore or (as is done here) make demands. But the question is how much of those refusing will actually get terminated. If essentially none are, then this whole thing was an empty threat.
I am all for people insisting in doing work-from-home, but obviously that may involve having to change employers. At the same time, employers that will reduce or prevent work-from-home have to accept that the market they can get employees from shrinks and drops in average quality. After the pandemic killed the idiotic notion that work-from-home cannot work, this is just a long overdue adjustment process.
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Duh (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon is well within their right as an employer.
But it's a very short-sighted policy for a company that wants people to move everything into the Cloud and access it from anywhere in the world.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you talking about Amazon? The company with over a quarter-billion square feet of warehouses, over 100,000 delivery vans and even its own airline for shipping boxes? I wouldn't say it expects "everything" to move into the cloud.
Re: (Score:2)
Not necessarily. This is often just about (real) power. Sure, both sides are doing a game of chicken here, but as long as the loser can live with it that is entirely fine. I told one of my current employers that sure, I will go to customer meetings, but the only thing I am going for to the office is if it is really necessary and if that does not work for you, sure, find somebody else. Turns out, finding somebody else for that role is really hard, so they made it possible. Just the market at work.
Rules (Score:5, Insightful)
Every job I've ever had had rules you could get fired for breaking.
This is the first decade ever that you could find people acting shocked that "Come to work" is such a rule.
Re:Rules (Score:4, Insightful)
It's because, and maybe you missed this, the COVID lockdowns caused enough people to realized that you don't actually have to do most IT work from a company office. Now 20th century management practices are in question and management isn't quite competent enough to adapt to a changing situation. I predict Amazon and others are going to waste a lot of time and effort making an issue out of something that likely doesn't have any real fiscal impact to their business.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I wish it were that simple, but it isn't.
If it really, and clearly, had no impact, they probably wouldn't chase it as far as they are. But I share their concerns.
- Some people thrive and remain productive (even excel) in WFH... but plenty - and I suspect more than half - do not.
- Mentorship, coaching, and growth all suffer
- Innovation is lessened. That screen between you and everybody else is an awesome shield behind which you can sit and not be heard. In person, body language is king.
- Social networking is
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
All of these can be done just fine remotely. Now how well they work for an individual is debatable. But you are asking one population to bow to the emotional and mental desires of another for things they "Feel" work better, when in actuality it just works better for THEM, not everyone as a whole. Ive been mentoring a new engineer who lives on the other side of the country and he's been learning a ton and coming a long just fine. Innovation and social networking, well 90% of my job is working on open source
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, you have my apologies. I think, upon rereading, that I may be at odds with your intent.
Lots of people imply that managers hold meetings so that they, personally, look like they're doing something. It's the stereotype I object to.
I think you may have meant that mangers convince themselves people are doing something simply because those people can be seen. That's different - and probably has some validity.
Re: (Score:2)
Nuanced and valid. I unreservedly withdraw my objection.
Re:Rules (Score:4, Insightful)
My point is that much of one's experience with remote work depends upon how well management adapts to such a model. Taking a team that works in an office full time and simply putting them all in their homes with no adjustments is asking for problems. But the existence of problems doesn't mean that remote work necessarily causes problems, which is what many choose to believe.
Re:Rules (Score:5, Insightful)
Some people thrive and remain productive (even excel) in WFH... but plenty - and I suspect more than half - do not.
In this case these people are free to go to the office. I think nobody here said that people MUST NOT work from an office and HAVE TO establish a WFH environment.
Mentorship, coaching, and growth all suffer
Can't say I agree, mostly because we have onboarded quite a few new talents during the pandemic and there was no real difference to the old way. Actually, it went a lot smoother because it was much easier to share a screen than to have people walk around the office, then back to their pc to try something, then back to the mentor... I think that's mostly a matter of your skill with remote tools and of course whether you use sensible remote tools.
Innovation is lessened. That screen between you and everybody else is an awesome shield behind which you can sit and not be heard. In person, body language is king.
I frankly don't quite intuitively understand what you mean here, you might want to elaborate how innovation suffers. Also, I'm an autist, your body language tells me jack shit and mine usually tells you something vastly different from what I try to say. At best, it's distracting, at worst, it's offensive.
Social networking is stunted. I learned more about the state of the organization over coffee than I ever learned in meeting rooms.
Quite the opposite happened. Instead of 3-4 people of an office sharing a "coffee standup", what happened during the pandemic was that a bunch of departments got together for a "virtual coffee" in the morning. Best thing was that you could actually work, or at least do your emails, while chatting with the rest of the people, I got to know a lot of people I usually only interacted on a strict business level on a way more personal level and that in turn led to a far more amiable work environment. Since the offices are a couple 100 miles apart, this could not even be done in a non-virtual environment and since the pandemic is over, that kinda drifted apart again. So no, actually the company was much "closer" during the lockdown than it was before or is now.
So... no, sorry, cannot agree.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, it went a lot smoother because it was much easier to share a screen than to have people walk around the office, then back to their pc to try something, then back to the mentor
I've used screen sharing for things like that for around fifteen years when in person in the office with people.
Re: (Score:2)
Same. But some people prefer that exercise.
Re: (Score:2)
I think the real issue is that ultimately, they'll realize that the bodies are just makework bodies in large part and do significant RIF. As long as they are fighting this issue rather than the one I highlight, things are fine. The day will come, perhaps sooner than anticipated.
Re: (Score:2)
You're equivocating. (Score:4, Insightful)
These are people who are working and are just as if not more productive at home.
These are stealth layoffs. If they weren't Amazon would just track badge swipes and network sign ins and fire anyone for noncompliance.
Little annoyed that you thought nobody would notice the equivocation though....
Re: (Score:2)
They are not even stealth layoffs. They are a feeble attempt to avoid it.
Amazon could just do what you say. They could check who comes in and fire those that don't. Hell, that could even be automated. So why don't they? Because they don't want to fire them. They know exactly that they'd lose their key talent and that the rest also won't stay to pick up the slack. So what they instead try is to browbeat and guilt-trip people into compliance.
I don't know about you, but my immediate superior is someone I know
The policy is designed to let managers (Score:2)
Amazon won't fire the people they want. They'll just ignore the policy and keep working from home.
They're tapdancing around it because stealth layoffs are generally illegal. The law is extremely weakly enforced though.
Why are you so eager to defend a mega corp? It's not like they have any love for you.
Re: (Score:2)
Defend? If anything I hope that their workers call their bluff and refuse to bend over and take it.
I'm fairly sure Amazon doesn't want to lose its staff.
They can't (Score:2)
To get what you're after, where employees really can exert control, you need widescale unions.
Re: (Score:2)
Coming to work does not require me to move my physical body.
This means they're picking and choosing (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Rats.... replied to the wrong person. This [slashdot.org] was supposed to be a reply to you.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, probably. Scare the easily replaceable workers, do special deal for those they do not want to lose. In essence, every valuable worker that can do their job from home can insist on it.
My personal policy (in Europe, where firing somebody can get very difficult) is simple: You do not want me to work for you anymore? Just tell me, write me a nice performance evaluation and I will terminate my employment whenever that fits best for you, no hard feelings. In fact I pretty clearly stated that recently in one
This is a Story? (Score:2, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
The story is that it is ok to not show up for work 40% of the time. I.e., 40% absentee rate is ok.
Re:This is a Story? (Score:4, Insightful)
So you think I'm only working if I keep one particular chair from flying off into orbit?
Actually, I'd be far less productive in the office than I'm at home. I notice that every single time I have to actually go there. It's loud, it's hard to concentrate and I have to waste part of my brain power on pretending I'm human. All that cuts into my efficiency, and I hate that. Which is another thing that makes me unproductive.
Re:This is a Story? (Score:4, Interesting)
So you aren't working when working from home? Then come to the office, WFH is only for people who can behave like responsible adults.
Re: (Score:2)
It may be if it is a general policy going contrary to the wishes of a larger number of employees. Because in this case it will have a significant, deserved impact on who applies for jobs on Amazon in the future.
ok... (Score:2)
I mean....yeah. I prefer WFH myself but if my employer ordered us back I would expect to get fired if I didn't come back.
Re: (Score:2)
They don't want to fire their staff. They know exactly that this would end up in a landslide they can't stop.
So instead you get to talk to your immediate manager who you may have some kind of personal relationship with, and he gets to guilt-trip you into compliance.
Call their bluff and see what happens. Seriously.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. Also a nice opportunity to find out how valuable they actually think you are. I recently offered to resign from one of my jobs because they were not happy with the way I did some things. Turns out overall they definitely did _not_ want to lose me and these things were actually pretty minor. Occasionally you have to remind employers what a "market" is and how they work.
Re: (Score:2)
The demographics are shifting rapidly in the job market. You just have to take a look at the age pyramid, the writing is pretty much on the wall. What you'll see there is that the number of people reaching retirement age is at least as big and in many countries bigger than the number of people who come out of our schools. In other words, the workforce is shrinking. In my country, the difference between people leaving and joining the workforce per year is almost 20%. Only 80% of the people leaving the workfo
HR Nightmare? (Score:5, Interesting)
Giving line managers the ability to terminate immediately is cause for concern because anyone not terminated becomes proof of discrimination if anyone in a protected class is terminated.
Bob is allowed to work from home 4 days a week, but Nateesha is fired because she works from home three days a week. BOOM. Lawsuit.
Why even bring it up? (Score:4, Insightful)
Almost all US non-union jobs are "at will" which means the employer can terminate without cause and an employee can quit without notice. Smart companies never give a reason for termination. They just terminate. Giving ANY reason exposes the company to possible litigation or a variety of grounds.
"Your employment has been terminated effective immediately."
There is no reason to say anything else. Make your office attendance a "suggestion", but never use it as grounds for termination.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Because they're afraid that too many people will call their bluff. They know exactly that they can't afford losing their top people. And that's what they will lose if they just fire anyone who is above quota without guilt-tripping them first a few times.
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. They essentially are trying to scare people to come back into the office. At least the smart ones will realize and not be impressed. And anybody working there will find it a lot easier to look for alternate employment now. Essentially a lose-lose move for Amazon and exceptionally stupid.
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that it will exactly be the "good" staff that will call their bluff. And they also know that they can't lose them, so Amazon will eventually only have one choice: Pull through, fire their movers and shakers and try to continue with the dead weight that couldn't take the risk because they didn't already have 3 offers for other jobs to fall back on, or cave in, let their top talent continue to work from home and show blatantly that their top talent actually has them by the balls and can pretty
Re: (Score:2)
I fail to see the problem (Score:2)
That should give you ample time to find something new.
It will be interesting to watch this play out (Score:2)
Amazon certainly has the right to do this. But they are also risking losing their higher-end employees, who have plenty of choices in terms of where/how to work. However if that happens, it probably won't be obvious right away - there'll just be a gradual slide into mediocrity that eventually impacts profits. So will the higher ups correctly recognize it if it happens?
Re: (Score:2)
Giants die slowly. They can correct this but it will cost Amazon tons of money. And they will just have to accommodate what people want anyways.
Better union up! (Score:2)
Amazon showing its colors (Score:2)
Amazon has long had a reputation as a sweatshop. Not only for warehouse workers but for office workers too. This "get your ass back in the office or else" stuff is just going to drive employees away.
Sure, Amazon is within their rights to mandate those kinds of rules and in a right to work state they can fire you for whatever reason they want. But how is that going to look for prospective employees? Not good is my guess. There are plenty of companies willing to let you work from home and for people like me t
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Hey, here's hope that some new variant restarts the golden age of the past 3 years.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, that's a pretty poor management technique. As a manager myself, I would seek to remediate your attitude and failing that, fire you.
The inability to weigh the pros and cons of the situation means you're not very good at your job. For me, the pros outweigh the cons, and many of the "cons" that are touted to WFH aren't actually cons, they are an inability to properly manage a team or company. Yeah, some things are different - take one example of mentorship - under WFH mentorship still happens, but it
Re: (Score:2)
And that is why there are _good_ managers (you) and fuck-ups (the one you responded to). A good manager knows his job is to create the conditions his people can work well under and are happy with, whatever that may be. A bad manager mistakes himself for a "leader" with tendencies towards "slave-holder".
Re: (Score:2)
Never there feels that they are indispensible.
What they feel is that it's dumb and unnecessary for them to commute to a place to do exactly what they're already doing.
A lot of employers learned the hard way in COVID that... these people are usually right. And they can get another job that allows work from home very easily. They couldn't give two shits what happens to Amazon.
Can Amazon suffer loss of those workers and replace them with others willing to work from the office pointlessly? Maybe. Who cares?
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like you are one of those people that run a company into the ground if too many of you are fucking it up in "management". Incidentally, nobody with good skills is scared of being terminated. The realize types like you act tough to project an image, but know you are actually the one dependent on them and it is all show. _They_ can always easily find something better and be welcome with open arms. _You_ will have to replace them though and that may well fail.
Re: (Score:2)
It is. It also tells everybody that Amazon is stuck in the past and you may not want to waste your time to apply for a job there. Will take a few years, but this could well be very bad for them. The second aspect is always that you _do_ jave a choice, at least if you made sure to have some real skills.