Amazon is blocking promotions of employees who don’t comply with its return-to-office policy, leaked documents show::Amazon has updated its promotions policy to enforce its office attendance policy.
I kind of don’t get what’s going on here. I’d think your options would be:
a) Go back to the office, or
b) Stop working there
Like you’d either say to your boss “Look, this work from home thing is really important to me, so I need to look for an opportunity where I can continue to do that,” or your boss would say to you “Look, you keep not showing up to work, so we’re gonna let you go.”
It seems like any period where the company says “Okay, everybody back to the office” and some people say “Oh yeah I’m just gonna ignore that” has got to be pretty short-lived, right?
The whole reason that it works is because the company can’t afford to lose everyone who’s not complying.
But promotion blocking seems like a weak move. If returning to office is enough of a workplace issue to be a deal breaker, threatening people with not taking extra responsibilities or challenges seems like a losing proposition. They’re already willing to lose their job over the issue, and you’ve shown that you can’t lose them, so now you’re gonna make it shittier to remain at the company?
And even besides the perspective that promotions are a benefit, many roles are in place for the company’s sake, to stay organised, are they now gonna not fill those? Or only fill them with external applicants?
Or is the idea to only promote the compliant ones? That would make some sense, at least.
Loyalty and obedience prized over competence once again
The policy is as much aimed at pragmatic people managers as it is as actual staff. Your boss might be fully aware that they would struggle to replace you and will be quite happy with you working from home and so cuts an off books deal as this stops your manager from suffering reduced output for their team while they struggle to replace you.
I have personally been in this situation for the last two decades, I have worked from home pretty much full time across multiple, separate companies. One place I worked post lock down even used the staff who didn’t mind being the office to improve the team average to benefit those who did.
A company wide policy like this will make it hard for the manager to cut such a deal, particularly if Amazon get petty over checking IP addresses and swipe card usage.
I think this is very likely, though it’s also prolonging this whole exercise by avoiding the dramatic conclusion and spreading the pain out over a longer time.
If every manager at Amazon woke up tomorrow and said “screw it, we’re enforcing this policy”, that would result in a mass firing event of quality talent, and Amazon would feel the pain of their policy decisions and either have to swallow that and try to move on or beat a hasty retreat and call this whole thing off. It would be a quick and decisive end to this whole debate, but instead we have month after month of employees stressed and angry while looking rebellious and unmanageable, managers stressed and frustrated while looking ineffective, and the senior leadership frustrated and looking impotent.
Someone’s going to win this fight eventually, but everyone trying to find middle ground and skirt the policy just takes what would be one big fight and turns it into many months of slow unease and turmoil that’s bad for everyone. I want the remote people to win this, but sometimes the way to win is the lose on purpose. Let the dog catch the car so he can realize what an idiot he was being.
Completely agree, although I think cheap removal of expensive staff is one of the main goals here. Amazon don’t value the majority of staff, not just the ones involved with the warehouses and home delivery so valuing the output of those in positions that can be work at home isn’t really in their nature. This is of course extremely short sighted of them but they will not change until they are forced to.
its no different when IBM, HP, etc. targeted older workers to be replaced by the then younger and much cheaper millennials who lacked the institutional knowledge and still got undercut by the Indians. Its almost always about the cash.
Some middle managers will actually be ok with WFH and have great people working with them. I guess it’s about those scenarios where the management is actually shielding the employees from a stupid policy.
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Amazing how okay people are with a dictator when they’re called a CEO rather than a politician.
Just give up your whole livelihood, or be forced to move across the country, it’s okay guys it’s policy. Unreal.
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It’s always nice when people preemptively show you their entire ass and let you know you can just block them now.
One day you’re hopefully going to learn that just because a company can do x or y does not mean that they should or that it is in their best interests to do so.
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The problem os that they rely on their employees… go figure… this just means they cant afford to fire these people.
yeah looks like they cannot afford severance and unemployment
Some day I want to understand why this topic is so difficult especially for American companies.
They have to somehow justify their insane commercial real estate expenditures. Empty office buildings are a bad look.
It’s not that it’s a bad look it’s that all of their rich ceo buddies are getting robbed over shit downtown real estate. The companies with central offices support those real estate and they are seeing the value drop off the face of the earth. It’s all about their bottom line. It’s why we saw Biden throw them a bone by saying they’ll pay to covert them to cheap housing.
It’s firing those people after 3 days of non compliance… Why is anyone surprised that Amazon gonna be Amazon?
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This article is very specifically talking about coercive exclusion which is illegal in the UK under employment law. Maybe in other countries too.
Wait, is it? Can you cite that? I have a friend who recently moved to the UK and had their promo blocked under this rule.
Coersive Exclusion usually falls under the Equalities Act in the UK and against one of the protected criteria in the act but Nationwide Building Society recently lost a court case against them regarding forced office attendance. I don’t remember the specifics but it may he worth reading up on.
I will add, I’m no legal expert. My advice would be for your friend to speak to Citizens Advice Bureau or a solicitor to see whether they have a case.
And? What did they expect?
If your company wants you in person go. Or quit. Not a hard concept.
Or strike. If you and your coworkers feel that your employer has expectations that are unreasonable or sufficiently understandable you have the right to organize and negotiate as a unified force.
