Amazon WFH Policy

We’ve definitely seen the best days of WFH fulltime behind us now- 2-3 days mandatory in office will be standard fare. I know of a few Irish large Irish companies struggling to get people into the office even a few times a month - but I predict even they will turn up the heat - it’s always better to be seen in the office voluntary a couple of days a week rather than waiting on a 4-5 day mandatory order - that should be the thinking of all good manages right now - get your entire team into the office at least once a week - it may keep senior management “happy” - if you don’t , then expect a non negotiable demand for many more days in the office. Companies follow each other like sheep - WFH good yesterday - bad today

digital signatures are useful but there are loads of scenarios where they dont work.

What large irish companies are you talking about?

What happens if people don't comply? Would the company be able to let them go?

Yes. Disciplinary action for being AWOL

Yeah. But what Amazon are hoping for is the easier option of people just moving to somewhere with hybrid hours. Cuts down on staff, of which many tech companies scaled up too much and saves them money. Rather than properly paying to get rid of them.

A great bunch of lads is our Amazon.

The reason we are inching to 5 days back in the office is because companies are coming to the realization that hybrid is bollix.

It was always bollix, companies trying to show that they were progressive and employees pretending that they were happy that post lockdown they had a bit of flexibility.

But it just upsets routines and work flows.

You start out Monday at home, then you have to up sticks on Tuesday, back home Wednesday, gone again Thursday and home Friday, or whatever.

Every location change takes a little bit of adjustment, not much, almost a micro adjustment, but enough to make you less productive than if you were in the same location.

100% WFH or 100% in office were always better than hybrid.

The best hybrid offering would have been a week in three weeks at home, thus the disruption is less, but this idea of certain days in , certain days home was just arbitrary.

So now companies are realizing this and because it's easier to bring everyone back than to allow or deny WFH on a individual basis they are getting everyone back.

Completely disagree with this. Have been on a hybrid model for a few years now, 3 days per week in the office the same for everyone. Zero adjustment required to WFH on the same days you WFH every single week. I don't like the office environment, open plan offices are too noisy, distracting, and frankly pretty overwhelming at times. I think a lot of people who have never worked for a large company would be shocked at the working environment, a lot of the time it's akin to working in the middle of a shopping mall. At the same time I appreciate that there are some benefits from being around your colleagues face to face each week, its better for relationship building and when highly collaborative work needs to be done.

I organise my week so that tasks that require deeper focus are done on WFH days where possible so that I can get in the zone and get through them efficiently.

A hybrid model where you can choose when you go makes no sense to me though, better to have everyone on the same routine so that you can plan accordingly for best days to have team meetings etc.

I organise my week so that tasks that require deeper focus are done on WFH days where possible so that I can get in the zone and get through them efficiently.

But the only reason you have to organize the week and do these this deeper focus tasks as you call them on certain days is because your company has arbitrarily decided that you have to go into a office environment you don't like on certain days.

Why not let you stay WFH all the time and you could do those tasks any day of the week.

Equally anyone who preforms better in the office can go to the office every day.

Im curious if many people in tech jobs in Dublin around COVID times ended up buying houses in the west of Ireland?

It was a thing during COVID, was in the newspapers as a trend that estate agents were seeing. People seemed to think that 5 days WFH were here forever. Even 2 or 3 days of commuting from west Clare to Dublin would be a huge drag.

Also a poster mentioned that when they go into the office 1 day a week or month, they spend the day chatting to people. I've seen that in my own workplace, because people haven't seen that person in ages and end up approaching them most of the day for a chat. Doesn't happen when you turn up most days, you're left alone to do your work.

As long as the company replaces those roles with someone more Dublin based, they probably arent too concerned.

The situation probably worked out well for everyone.

Those that made the leap early were probably more likley to get a fully remote job than people trying to do the same thing now, as the RTO movement gathers pace.

Where were all these staff based up until 2019 or even early 2020?

Companies do have a responsibility to support the well being of their employees, of course. But that doesnt mean they have to accommodate requests to work from home, when such an arrangement is not stipulated in the contract that the employee signed.

firstly tone down your language ,

Secondly just because whatever outpost of the civil service you work in has adopted them doesn’t mean they work in all scenarios, we do business in a lot of southern European countries and they require wet ink , notarised and apostilled documents for certain things , try doing that from home.