Some Amazon employees have noticed an increasing number of Slack messages recently from colleagues who have resigned due to the company’s strict return-to-office mandate.
“This is my last week at Amazon and the only reason I’m leaving is because of the RTH (return to center) policy,” one person wrote in a message Monday on the company’s internal Slack channel dedicated to discussions about Amazon’s policy requiring employees to work. Any city identified as their team’s ‘hub’.
The channel, called “Remote Advocacy,” includes more than 34,000 employees this year.
Many Amazon employees have received deadlines to start working in offices and the rise in departures may be related to teams approaching those various deadlines.
Leave AWS
Amazon Web Services, the company’s cloud unit, in particular, has seen a number of notable departures in the past week or so. One of the AWS employees who is leaving had previously complained about the RTO on Slack, according to a message seen by Business Insider.
“The sheer number of AWS resignations in the past week is staggering,” Merit Bayer said Published on X on monday. I left AWS in July after 5+ years in the cloud division.
Other employees who announced their plans to resign from Slack recently cited the RTO as the only reason they found new jobs.
“I accepted an offer for a senior position at a remote-first company and today gave my two weeks notice,” an AWS employee wrote on Monday in one of the messages seen by BI. “I want to make it clear that the RTO and the miscommunication surrounding its implementation is the only reason I left Amazon.”
“this [is] “My last day at Amazon,” another AWS employee wrote on Friday. “I received a transfer mandate that would have never been possible for me, and fortunately I found an opportunity I am excited about before the deadline.”
“Back to center”
In early 2023, Amazon began paying most employees to come into the office at least 3 days a week. Then in July, the company began enforcing a “return to center” policy. Hubs are central locations assigned to each individual team, and employees must work in those hubs rather than any office closer to their current city.
Amazon had not commented at press time on Tuesday. However, BI has asked the company to comment on its RTO policy several times in recent months. In July, spokesman Brad Glaser said there was “more energy, collaboration and communication happening since we’ve been working together.”
Despite these official comments, some Amazon employees have recently decided to leave due to this issue. Some cited concerns about what they saw as a lack of respect from management when it came to the RTO as well as the company’s mass layoffs earlier this year.
“Tomorrow is my last day at Amazon,” an Amazon employee wrote on Thursday. “The lack of basic human-respecting leadership demonstrated by the layoffs and the RTO being forced to work is completely unacceptable.”
“Today is my last day at Amazon,” another AWS employee wrote on Friday. This person cited a “lack of basic respect for employees as human beings with lives and families, which our executives have demonstrated through repeated rounds of layoffs, and poorly planned and forced RTO and RTT (return to team) mandates that were done without data to back them up or consultation.” “
Employee attrition is one of the issues facing Amazon’s cloud business, as the unit deals with slowing growth, missing some sales targets, and employee burnout due to the push to sell new AI services, BI recently reported.
“Attrition among AWS employees has declined in recent years and it is inaccurate to suggest there is a problem with employee retention,” an Amazon spokesperson told BI last week.
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