Amazon WFH Policy

It’s a lot better than it was 12 months ago, but not noticing a huge change to be honest, definitely not where it was at 18+ months ago

100% agree with Dublinflyers post above, the only reason that Irish employee got the 500k was due to Irish law, in the US you'd be on the kerb! Still doesnt stop US managers of Irish employees trying these tactics out, which can cause alot of stress..

Have you worked for American companies? I have worked for 4, never again. I have 20 years experience in them…

Figures and stats can be manipulated to portray anything you want, a thing American companies are adept at!! :)

Now people who will do anything for money is another matter. But long term exposure to the so called 'best working conditions' will do your mental and physical health no good.

Can you outline the best working conditions that are meant? I failed to see any other than wages..

Seriously you see nothing wrong with the way that individual was treated in the article, all you see is the money! Pity all the other employees who now have to give up their life if they wish to remain working for that t**t!

It would be a representation of alot of tech US companies, maybe an extreme example but nonetheless they generally treat staff as numbers..

Lads its not lockdown. These people can go outside and interact with people outside of working time.

If there are people who have lost social skills due to WFH, I would bet my life these are the people who before WFH, went to work, interacted with no one anyway, went home and stayed inside.

you're right in that I wouldn't take a 50% cut but I took a 20% cut and still believe I came out on top. I was very worried initially, but a few months in, I've realised it was by far the best career decision I've made. There are local companies here who I think could get up to that 75% mark of salary for some of the MNCs, possibly not the ridiculous salaries you see dropped once in a while, but this just feels like an easy win for local companies to attract the talent they've been bemoaning for years saying that MNCs poach away from them.

Not having to drop kids to "breakfast clubs" at 7am to make a commute is a saving. Similarly, picking the kids up from school so they can relax at home, means no afterschool club either. That saving alone is significant, and if I was commuting, I'd have to suck it up

this I do agree with. My wife is a nurse and to this day, I honestly believe she does two or three times the work I do. They definitely deserve something for continuing to work on-site when there is such a big move for others to work from home

We have offshore teams in India, some of whom moved out of the main tech cities during lockdown. So now they're flying back in to stay in hostels for X days in a row to meet their quota for the month. Which seems insane to me. But hey, rules are rules:-)

depends on the kids :)

ive seen several examples of people saving on child care by bringing kids home from school and then proceeding about their working day leaving them on ipads. Or they dont proceed about their working day and juggle minding the kids and work, not doing a great job at either. Neither scenario is great imo. Maybe saves money but at what cost?

I currently work for a relatively large MNC in the Midlands that recently announced something similar - an "office-first" mindset. Reading further in the announcement, they are looking for a 60-40 split between office vs WFH (3 days per week being in the office). This is coming from upper management not based in Ireland.

As expected, they seem to be getting quite a lot of push-back from employees. They state that it's to improve communication & collaboration, and gave some spiel about "brainstorming around the coffee dock". Everyone knows that the decision is probably due to one or more of the following reasons:

1. Micro-management
2. Attempting to justify the office space
3. Reduce head count

Now, they say that they are open to exemptions, but this will be a case-by-case basis, with the norm being 2 day WFH. They also stated that it will be 'phased in', and that we'll hear more in the following weeks/months. I have discussed with my manager that I can definitely be in atleast 1 day a week, and 2 days a week every 2nd/3rd week. They seemed quite open to this. (I live ~100km from the office).

I feel that a more fluid approach should be taken, and not a hard "you must be in Tue, Wed & Thur" approach. Give employees the flexibility. WFH is easily worth 20% of my salary, in my opinion.

The problem with this is that some people have down right refused to come to the office, ever. Even people who live within 5-10 minute walk of the campus. This includes some mandatory onsight days when WFH was the norm over the past year or 2 post-COVID.

Companies tend to give the standard spiel about caring for employees mental & physical health, and general well-being, but we all know this is complete guff.

With this new mandate, many employees are going to again have large commute times (3 hours per day). These commutes will have significant impacts on mental and physical health. Long, stressful commutes can lead to burnout, increased fatigue etc. Financial costs will rise due to seeking childcare, petrol/diesel/electricity. Employees with mortgages will find it difficult to relocate closer to the office, if they wish to do so. Funnily enough, this was a suggestion by my manager when I mentioned to him the long commute.

why would anyone pick a job outside Dublin and have a 3 hour commute, how many people actually have this kind of commute, doesnt sound credible. You see people taking a dublin job and living in wexford fair enough but not the opposite.

It was only a joke, I dont have kids..

Older primary kids I'd say. In the last couple of years of primary, on the days I WFH, my kids would make their own way home from school, let themselves in, grab a snack, do their homework etc. (and occasionally even bring me up a cup of tea). They weren't quite the age where they needed to be 'minded' as such, but also not quite old enough that I would have been comfortable with them letting themselves into an empty house. To be fair, they were also very good at knowing that I was working and shouldn't be disturbed other than an actual emergency. In fact, I find them less disruptive than a former workmate who was constantly either popping into me "for a chat" or standing outside my office having those chats very loudly with other colleagues.

On my WFO days we had an arrangement with a granny of a friend of theirs, who was also a childminder, where they would do similar at her house until one of us was free to get them.

Much better for them than being in a creche setting after school (which was where they were pre-covid, and loved it, but were definitely feeling "too old").

Yeah, as they say "This is why we can't have nice things"

Some people are better at WFH than others. Sometimes by someone being WFH it makes things harder for people on site, plenty of examples where I am trying to get a record hard signed by 5 people. If on site I could door step them. Have it done on 10 minutes of lucky. With half them working from home I am scanning, emailing. Waiting for them to scan etc.

We are 4 years later and there are still people who don’t have a printer to facilitate print and sign from home. Incompetent either on purpose or unknowingly.

Everyone's experience is different depending on the industry and role so we're all probably talking at cross-purposes. I've worked for irish companies in the past and presently over a decade in a MNC in Ireland.

I keep my eye on the job market and no Irish companies offer close to my salary, maybe 20-30k below. Most MNCs do, some a little more than what I'm on.

In terms of my "best working conditions"

1. Subsidised restaurant-quality food in the canteen. Maybe a fiver for what you'd spend €15 on in a restaurant.
2. Flexi-time - come and go as I please so long as the work gets done and I attend meetings (in person or online)
3. Generous holidays
4. Generous bonuses and things like One4All vouchers
5. Clothes and other swag (it's branded with company logo, but it's still quality stuff)
6. International travel to conferences and trade shows
7. Bring your child to work and other CSR events which are well appreciated.

EDIT:

8. double matched pension

9. Salary sacrifice share scheme.

At the end of the day, I could get a job in an Irish company for worse pay and worse conditions. Maybe they'd care about me more as an individual. But if that means a worse standard of living and working till I'm 67 then forget about it.

I'm a fan of WFH, but if my company mandated 5 days in the office then I wouldn't kick up a fuss. I would still be better off in the long run.