- Most Amazon corporate employees began working in the office five days a week in January 2025.
- Some employees reported problems such as missing desks, full parking lots and office theft.
- Others are eager to reconnect with colleagues. “You just can’t recreate these connections online.”
Amazon’s five-day back-to-office mandate is off to a rocky start.
Employees who spoke to Business Insider said the new office policy, which began at the beginning of the year, has resulted in full parking lots, shortages of desks and meeting rooms, and theft of items from desks.
While some employees praised the new policy as more face-to-face interactions have sometimes resulted in better collaboration, others say they still spend too much of their time on video chats and other virtual meetings.
BI spoke to seven current Amazon employees about the office’s new mandate. Employees also shared screenshots of Slack group messages and other private communications.
“Please go back to RTO3,” an Amazon employee wrote on Slack, referring to Amazon’s previous policy of allowing staff to work two days a week from home. “Or allow employees the option for WFH if they have the right setup and are high performers.”
That Slack post garnered at least 22 supportive emojis from other Amazon colleagues.
Change is hard
Amazon headquarters in Seattle Amazon
Amazon has 1.5 million workers, of which approximately 350,000 are corporate staff. So those people who openly complain about the full RTO experience represent a small fraction of the company’s workforce.
Some of the complaints may be a natural reaction to what is a drastic change in daily life for thousands of employees who slowly got used to working from home in the pandemic and must now readjust to a new reality.
Peter Cappelli, director of the Wharton Center for Human Resources, told BI that forcing employees to return to the office could breed resentment. But even if management does a poor job with the transition, employees can’t do much because the RTO is often “painful.” And leaving isn’t an option since fewer companies offer remote work these days, he noted.
“Employers have all the power here,” Cappelli added.
Some Amazon employees are happy with the RTO
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Amazon
Not all Amazon employees resent working in an office every day of the week.
BI asked Amazon for examples of employees who are positive for a full return to duty. The company’s press office shared the thoughts of two employees.
Rena Palumbo, an Amazon Web Services employee, said that reestablishing the human connection with colleagues has been important, and now she is more excited to work with them.
Cash Ashley, another AWS employee, said face-to-face interactions have been crucial to building working relationships and creating mentoring opportunities. He said RTO also helps with work-life balance because there is a clear separation between work and home.
“You just can’t recreate these connections online,” Ashley said.
In an email to BI, an Amazon spokesperson said the company is focused on making sure the transition is “as smooth as possible.”
“While we have heard ideas for improvement from a relatively small number of employees and are working to address them, these anonymous anecdotes do not reflect the sentiment we are hearing from the majority of our teammates,” the spokesperson said. “What we’re seeing is a great energy across our offices, and we’re excited by the innovation, collaboration and connection we’ve already seen with our teams working together in person.”
CEO Andy Jassy said last year that the new policy aims to improve team collaboration and “further strengthen” the company’s culture. AWS CEO Matt Garman also told employees in October that 9 out of 10 people he spoke to were “excited” about the change.
Lack of tables and meeting rooms
Most of Amazon’s corporate employees began following the five-day back-to-office mandate in early January. There are some signs that the company was not fully prepared for the logistical challenges.
Some workers found there weren’t enough desks and had to hunt for space in a cafeteria or a hallway, two employees told BI. Others said there were not enough chairs in offices and meeting rooms.
There was also a shortage of meeting rooms, one of the people said. Some people were taught to talk openly about private topics while working from home. Now they’re surrounded by colleagues in the office, so they’re slipping informally into meeting rooms and phone rooms to have these conversations, this person said. This has blocked meeting spaces and left some managers having private conversations in open areas for everyone in the office to hear.
Full parking and shuttle
Amazon headquarters in Seattle Amazon
Several Amazon employees complained on Slack that when they drove to the office they were turned away because the company’s parking lots were full. Others said they just drove home, while some employees found nearby street parking, according to multiple Slack messages seen by BI.
An employee from Amazon’s Nashville office said wait times for a company parking permit are backed up for months, though another employee there said the company was offering free permits to commuters, which they described as “incredibly generous.” .
Another Amazon employee said some colleagues are joining morning work meetings from the road because the flood of extra workers coming into the office is making commutes longer.
Other employees said they were denied a seat on Amazon buses because the vehicles were full, according to one of the Slack messages seen by BI.
Signs of strain
With so many Amazon employees spread out in over 100 countries around the globe, getting everyone back to a smooth office will take more than a few weeks.
Indeed, Amazon delayed full RTOs at dozens of locations, with some pushed back to May, due to office capacity issues, BI previously reported. Amazon affiliates such as One Medical and Twitch have also delayed or received exceptions to the office’s five-day return policy, BI reported.
“Our senior leadership has botched this so badly along with so many other things. Makes us wonder what other poor decisions will affect the company in the coming year,” an Amazon employee recently wrote on Slack of the company.
Amazon’s spokesperson told BI that the company is ready for the vast majority of employees to return to the office.
“Since the beginning of January, the vast majority of our employees have dedicated workspaces and returned to the office full time,” the spokesperson said. “Of the hundreds of offices we have around the world, there are only a relatively small number that are not quite ready to welcome everyone back five full days a week.”
Office burglaries and daily shower reminders
In some cases, basic office etiquette seemed to be missing after staff returned in the first week or so of January.
According to Slack messages, several employees at Amazon’s Toronto office complained that their personal items were repeatedly stolen from their desks.
One person complained that a keyboard and mouse placed on their assigned desk were missing, while another asked employees to keep their belongings in a safe place.
“Despite being well-paid adults, it’s embarrassing that we can’t trust each other with leaving personal items unattended,” one worker wrote on Slack. An Amazon spokesperson declined to comment when BI asked specifically about the issue.
An office “survival guide”.
On Blind, which runs anonymous message boards for corporate employees, Amazon employees posted an “essential survival guide,” offering advice for colleagues returning to the office.
“Operation: Don’t Be the Office Menace” listed some dos and don’ts for working with other people.
“Use personal hygiene protocols BEFORE you step off your launchpad (home). Yes, that means actually using the shower you’ve been avoiding since WFH started,” reads an office life tip on Amazon .
Another called on colleagues to keep the toilets tidy. “Bathroom is not a ‘serverless’ environment. Flush after use – it’s called ‘garbage collection’ for a reason.”
A third piece of advice focused on the types of shoes to wear in the office. “Shoes are not optional. This is not a beach sprint retrospective – keep those toes in their proper containers (shoes).”
“Too little team discussion”
RTO has been one of Amazon’s most contentious issues over the past couple of years. Tens of thousands of Amazon employees signed internal petitions opposing the mandate, while internal Slack channels exploded with questions about the change. Jassy has had to address this issue repeatedly during everyone’s internal meetings.
This month, some employees were still questioning the logic of the policy. They said that sitting in the office has so far had little effect on their work routine and has not generated much productivity gain.
A significant portion of their office work is still being done via video calls with clients located elsewhere, these employees told BI.
Many Amazon colleagues are based in other office locations, so face-to-face meetings still don’t happen very often, they added.
“Very little team discussion while here,” wrote one employee on Slack.
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