According to a blog posted on Monday, Amazon will allow many technical and corporate employees to continue working remotely indefinitely, as long as they can commute to the office when necessary.

This is different from Amazon’s previous expectations that once the office reopens in January, most employees will need to stay at least three days a week. Monday’s message was signed by Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, ​​who explained that Amazon directors-a title for the company that means an executive overseeing a small number of teams-will have discretion Decide whether to allow teams within their scope of authority to remain remote. “We expect that some teams will mainly continue to work remotely, other teams will work remotely and in some combination in the office, and some teams will decide to let the team mainly work in the office to provide the best service to customers,” Jassy wrote.

“We deliberately do not specify how many days or days-this is determined by the directors and their senior leaders and team.” This new policy, which applies to nearly 60,000 Amazon workers in the Puget Sound area, may exacerbate the anxiety of South Lake Union business owners and further complicate forecasts for the future of the Seattle office market. At the same time, Amazon employees seem to be overwhelmed by the news, and some people say it remains to be seen how many teams will actually be approved for remote work.

Allowing long-term remote work gives Amazon greater flexibility in responding to the national mandate announced by President Joe Biden last month, that is, companies with more than 100 employees must require employees to be vaccinated or regularly tested for coronavirus. Fearing that many warehouse workers may resign in protest, Amazon has been reluctant to require employees to be vaccinated. In the blog post, Jassy thanked Amazon employees who were unable to work remotely during the pandemic “because of their enthusiasm.” It is highly appreciated.

“These employees include the vast majority of Amazon’s more than 1 million employees worldwide, who work in the company’s fulfillment and transportation departments, as well as AWS data centers and physical retail employees. Amazon Washington State has approximately 20,000 employees working in the company’s warehouses. Amazon’s update of its resumption of work policy follows similar moves by other tech giants. Microsoft announced last month that it will postpone the reopening of the office indefinitely; Google has stated that it expects that about 20% of its employees will continue to work full-time remotely.

Even if the tourism industry recovers, the new consensus around remote work may exacerbate the plight of small businesses in downtown Seattle. Recent data from the Seattle Downtown Association shows that only about a quarter of office workers in downtown Seattle have returned to the office.

News Source : The Settle Times