'Quit if you don't want to return...': Amazon AWS CEO Matt Garman warns staff

Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman has been clear that AWS will be returning to the office and will have an RTO of five days per week starting from January 2025. In the latest all-employees’ meeting, Garman stressed the importance of face-to-face collaboration as fundamental to innovation and a healthy organisational culture, while employees complained about work-life imbalance and commuting expenses.

The new policy was announced by the head of Amazon, Andy Jassy, in September, according to which most employees must come to the office with a full-time schedule. That is why Garman’s statement has caused controversy, as many employees complain about the change from a previously set three-day office mandatory. To the voices of dissent, Garman said, “If there are people who just don’t work well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s okay; there are other companies around.” This brash message reaffirms the company’s policy of wanting its employees back in the office and not concerned with flexibility.

According to Garman, remote work has proved to have a negative impact on innovation within AWS. He pointed out that this has deprived the workers of chances to engage in synergy and innovation due to the absence of bodily contact. “When we want to innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we’re not in person,” he explained. He said that a modern office with active brainstorming sessions and healthy debates is possible only in face-to-face communication.

Although Garman claims that 90% of employees he has met are in favour of a new policy, organisational surveys show that the workers are dissatisfied. Several employees have expressed worries over the time they take to get to work and whether this affects their productivity. Some have even said they will quit the company rather than be subjected to the new mandate. While Amazon is still in the middle of this rather bitter process, it is already different from such giants as Google and Microsoft, which have long been implementing rather liberal policies in terms of remote work.