Amazon WFH Policy

I'm yet to meet some claim that fundamental right.

As someone who has had WFH/Remote work on and off for 2 decades I don't have a problem with it. Current role is full time in the office. Thats the deal. If others aspects of the role done make up for lack of WFH then I look at moving.

I am not surprised Amazon are doing this, no matter what the actual reason is, it doesn't looks like WFH will be available within the organisation going forward which may or may not cause them issues.

Many companies are rowing back on WFH, some aren't.

I'm not even sure who you are talking about tbh.

Nobody is suggesting full time WFH here at all. It's hybrid working which is the norm now. Only people who are workaholics seem to have a problem with this.

Parents with young families getting up at 4am 5 days a week to commute to Dublin was very stressful for mental health and poor quality of life.

• Less childcare costs
• Less traffic/emissions/petrol costs
• Less reliance of people having to move or commute to Dublin to get a job.
• Less need for double accommodation for some. Family at home plus rent in city.
• Better quality of life for families. More hours for family/ genuine friends to socialise
• Better health, less stress, lower blood pressure, better sleep/rest, better nutrition
• Less office space required per employee for employers. Shared spaces/desks
• More balanced regional development for the country as a whole
• Better communications infrastructure across the country

I am always amused by those who try to argue that employers are forcing employees to come back into offices out of some kind of faux concern for workplace morale, isolation, and the mental health of their employees in general.

I can state with some authority that my employer did not give a toss about any of the above, pre-pandemic, and I don't expect that to have reversed - certainly not to the point where they now "care" enough to manage people's mental health for them, by making them come back to offices "for their own good". Give me a break.

Ultimately, there will always be people who live to work, whose whole lives and social interactions revolve around their jobs. They are the people who will be more than happy to spend 5 days a week in an office, and would love to see everyone else dragged back into them too. So they have someone to talk to.

Then there are people who work to live. Who have lives outside of their jobs, and don't depend on their workplace for social interactions. I now fall firmly into the second category.

Haven't seen anyone here who is against WFH. I'm in favour, but I'm not surprised company's are mandating people return to the office.

absolutely no chance of this happening, it’s an employees market out there and companies know they’ll lose good staff if they start ruffling feathers. Yes they could accelerate retirements for sure but losing good staff in an already difficult market for hiring is a very very risky approach. The outlier in any industry which the majority adopts that approach of office 5 days a week will be the one who benefits most.

Oh yeah, my company closed an office this year. I'm mainly remote but meet my team and wider company for social events as I think it's important. Today was a team lunch.

Yeah I'm far from surprised amazon are doing it tbf

You only need to look at the TikTok case. Required back in the office three days per week and the person hadn't attended at all whatsoever for months. Not coming back at all when you're asked when they've given plenty of notice and are meeting people halfway. Either leave and find a job with a pattern that works for you as you are perfectly free to do or follow the policy.

This is exactly what it’s all about. Control!! And of course, having control over your employees is vital.

I don’t think the job market for folks in Amazon is all that great, sure you might get easily a job elsewhere but you will probably be taking at least a 50% pay cut unless you can land a job in the other large US companies like Google, Meta, Microsoft etc. and these companies have had a lot of layoffs in the last 18months and are not hiring that much at the moment. I’d also expect that another one of these will follow suit at 5days/week also.

In the end money talks and not that many will take the big pay cut to have flexible work elsewhere.

I don't know, I think you'd be surprised how much people value their freedom/flexibility. I took a hit in money specifically to get that flexibility. I think this could actually be a good thing in the long run for a lot of local companies. Irish companies finally have a way to compete with multinationals. Sure you're gonna have folks who are very money focused, but this tends to be early in careers, as people get more senior, they'll command higher salaries and they may prioritise flexibility over the MNC salaries and that's something Irish companies can offer.

Would you take a 50% hit though? I definitely would take less for a better work life balance, but at the moment 50% would be too much.