With the pandemic abating, returning to the office isn’t so cool for some who have gotten used to working from home.
Last week, more than 2.3K Disney employees filed a petition against CEO Bob Iger’s request that staffers return to the office for a Monday through Thursday work week, effective March 1. Today CNBC reports that a similar uprising is underway at Amazon, where several employees argued against CEO Andy Jassy’s request that employees return to three days a week starting May 1. A slack channel of Amazon employees expressing their concerns was set up on Friday and is numbered north of 14K as of today.
When Deadline reached out to an Amazon representative about the situation, they referred us to Jassy’s memo to staff from Friday.
Jassy said at the time: “It is not easy to bring many thousands of employees back to our offices around the world, so we are going to give the teams that have to do that work some time to develop a plan. We know it won’t be perfect at first, but the office experience will steadily improve over the coming months (and years) as our real estate and facilities teams iron out the wrinkles and ultimately continue to evolve how we want our offices set up to accommodate the new ways we want to work. I know people will have questions about how this change will be implemented. We’ll be finalizing these details in the coming weeks, so check Inside Amazon for those updates.
“We, the undersigned, call on Amazon to protect its role and status as a global retail and technology leader by immediately canceling the RTO policy and issuing a new policy that allows employees to work remotely or more flexibly, if they choose to. if their team and position allow it,” read a draft of the petition, which was reported by Business Insider.
The petition included stats showing how remote working improves productivity, reduces costs and attracts top talent. What was worrying was what a return to the person would mean for those parents, minorities, carers and people with disabilities.
Jassy and Iger share similar views on returning to the office. For the former, his note points out how collaborating makes it “easier to learn, model, practice, and reinforce our culture” and “collaborating and inventing is easier and more effective when we’re in person.”
Iger emphasized in his January 9 memo: “In a creative company like ours, nothing can replace the ability to connect, observe and create with colleagues through being physically together, nor the opportunity to grow professionally through learning of leaders and mentors. . It is my belief that more personal collaboration will benefit the creativity, culture and career of our employees.”
The Washington Post first reported that petitions against a return to office at Disney came from divisions such as ABC, 20th Century Studios, Marvel Studios, Hulu, Pixar and FX. Those who prefer to work remotely at the Mouse House argued that productivity would be negatively impacted, as would efficiency and output. They also believed that going back to personal would lead to staff shortages and layoffs.
Amazon employees are angry because Jassy’s earlier statements about a hybrid workplace praised that one size doesn’t fit all. According to reports, the affected Amazon employees are those hired to work remotely outside of the shopping site/streamer’s main hubs in Seattle, New York and Northern California.
“Of course, just like before the pandemic, there will be certain roles (e.g. some of our sales reps, customer support, etc.) and exceptions to these expectations, but that will be a small minority,” Jassy said.
Deadline reached out to Disney, who declined to comment on the petition to return to work.
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