Amazon WFH Policy

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.

They will in time.

And once the roles are filled, they don't have the problem again as anyone applying thereafter knows the office time expectations.

Makes for a smoother ride in the long term for the business.

I've always said that companies that do this simply want to reduce staff numbers and this is a cheap coercive way to do so without redundancies.

Second to this, with the loss of good will from workers who do stay they will not get this magical "improvement in productivity" that they yearn. You think staff that are forced to commute 3 to 4 hours a day will be as productive as they were at home? Complete myth.

My company implemented the same full return this year with no evidence of any issues in productivity. It was simply the ego maniacs at the top who feel uncomfortable not seeing their vanity project office space filled with miserable people. The stupidity of forcing people as part of a global team into an office to then attend virtual teams meetings the same as they did at home. All whilst being more miserable and more tired. Genius management!

It's dinosaur thinking from dinosaur managers.

I also wonder how many of the employees are commuting 90mins each way to the midlands?

They must live miles away. Again, not the fault of the company if an employee chooses a job with an unmanageable commute.

There are going to be a lot of miserable dogs howling and barking all day all over the country, and driving the neighbours mad, if people have to go back to the office full time.

I don't really care so much for AWS workers as they get great benefits, salary, share options etc ... it's just the rest of us plebs who might have to go back full time if this becomes a precedent.

One huge advantage of covid for me is that I can work from home and also the company actually started cleaned the office properly and regularly since covid. But the 3+ hours per day, especially in Winter is a complete depressing waste of time and money and health.

What you're inadvertently admitting is you've no productivity or output metrics. People can be sitting at a desk doing nothing.

lot of exaggeration about people’s commute in this thread , 4 hours a day ? That’s an outlier

They can, but I think most companies accept that if people are doing nothing in the office, it will be noticed.

If nothing is being done from home, they wont necessarily notice.

I agree with you that some companies have better ways to monitor productivity, but many do not.

I am not a manger personally, but i have heard various people question "what does Jimmy or Mary actually do from home, i'm always doing the work" etc.

The perception is real that some people dont work well from home and if employees think it, you can be sure the managers are thinking it also.

I don't agree. Because if they are asking the question "what does X do" they don't have metrics. Equally saying I know if X is in the office they are working is also saying you don't have metrics. It's the same flaw in logic.

You don't have assume anything. You can look at the census and see average commutes by county. In my section we have about 10% of people 2hrs or more away from the office. The census is one thing, but you should know your people.

Mine is about 2 hrs there and back. And I really notice how more tired I am on those days. Because most of it is standing on a train, clinging to a handle playing sardines, and trying not to catch anything.

And it's going to take time to recover when I get to the office, and I'm not taking a call or opening up the laptop when commuting. So the office has lost that flexibility from me on those days.

I'm sure we'll be replaced by AI without these issues. But good luck getting your ai to fix your printer for your paperwork lol.

I don't have to misrepresent you, anyone can read your posts and tell by your attitude.

On another point, when I was working in a Dublin City Centre location 18kms away from my home (also in Dublin), I routinely endured a 2 hour a day return commute, but 3 hours was not at all unusual or infrequent, especially if it rained! And amongst my colleagues, I certainly wasn't an outlier at that. But I guess we must have all been collectively exaggerating.

We are the same. It's very hard to get people. Even when you do, it's left huge gaps in business knowledge and experience that we've never got back with the new people. Lot of churn also. Obviously easier for people to get new jobs, than it is for organisations to hire people.

When you dealing with other organisations we hear the same back. Lack of resources. It's a real struggle to maintain contacts with them because they also have a lot of churn.