Laura was working from home when her husband forwarded her a link to the news: Amazon tells employees to return to office five days a week. It was the first time the working mom, who has been with Amazon for over four years, learned she would need to add another four hours to her weekly commute.
“At first, I didn’t quite believe it,” she tells Fortune. “After all, who expects to get career-altering news from a news article instead of your employer.”
“Which, to be honest, is a pretty horrible way to find out about something that’s going to impact your life in a huge way. I really, really would have liked a personal communication from my manager, but that didn’t happen for a couple of days.”
Laura says she was hired virtually during the pandemic with the understanding that there was no expectation to return to Amazon’s offices.
That was, until 2023 when CEO Andy Jassy announced that he wanted workers to “go back to being in the office together the majority of the time”—at least, three days per week.
“The original RTO mandate was a tough pill to swallow, but the latest one is impossible,” she says.
After the initial shock of the news blew over, Laura says a sense of calm and clarity washed over: “My months of struggling to make three days a week are over, and I know that my time at Amazon has to end.”
Even if she could commit to commuting into the office full time, Laura says she would still quit over Amazon’s remote work bait and switch.
“Honestly, I’ve lost so much trust in Amazon leadership at this point,” she adds. “I’ve been updating my resume and portfolio, and rage applying to new jobs on LinkedIn.”
Laura’s not alone: A handful of Amazon employees told Fortune that they’re so frustrated with the tech giant’s war on working from home that they’re officially on the job hunt.
Two say they learned the news—and its implications—via the media, rather than a manager.
One says they’ve already handed their notice in. Another says they’ve had two interview offers within 48 hours of the RTO announcement.
Amazon did not respond to Fortune’s request for comment.
Is the 5-day mandate a “negotiation game”?
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has repeatedly warned remote workers that it’s “not going to work out” for them at the company.
Despite this, it’s clear that a number of Amazon employees (and managers, for that matter) have been ignoring the guidelines up until now.
Experts previously told Fortune that Amazon’s 5-day mandate is a “negotiation game” to get employees in the office for the 3 days it originally asked for.
“I was not complying,” Ben, who lives three hours away from an Amazon office, comments on the previous hybrid policy.
He briefly considered moving before thinking again: “I decided not to make life choices as Amazon can fire me at will anyway, and I do not want to make long-term life changes because some manager decided I should start going to the office when I was hired virtual and promised I could work from wherever I want.”
Some managers were still assuring their new hires could work from home after the 3-day mandate came into effect.
One employee told Fortune that he was hired remotely in May 2023—a month after the company announced its initial RTO policy.
“I left a decent company I live near to go to Amazon since it was working from home,” Luca, a millennial analyst, complains. “For me, it’s not that I don’t want to go in the office, there is no office close to me.”
He says that his manager has been covering for his absence from any office, but that will no longer work.
“He told me he would not be able to help, they’ve made him go into an office too,” Luca says, adding that he couldn’t get a firm answer on whether he will be expected to head into the office despite being promised otherwise in the interview room.
“I like my job at Amazon, but I need firm ground to stand on and they are not providing that.”
Whether Jassy’s latest move is to make employees show their faces more frequently or not, workers have until Jan. 2, 2025 (the date he’s given them to relocate if needed) to call his bluff—or quit.
Most of the people Fortune spoke to think that Amazon is secretly hoping for the latter anyway.
A thinly veiled headcount reduction
While Jassy positioned Amazon’s changes—which also include a flattened hierarchy and no more hot desking—as a better way to work, disgruntled employees are adamant that it’s a thinly veiled headcount reduction.
“It’s a rob Peter to pay Paul situation of short-term gains from voluntary layoffs in exchange for losing top talent and reducing productivity for years to come,” Gen X program manager Jared says.
Although he’s only been working at Amazon for six months, he’s already changed his LinkedIn status to #opentowork, reached out to former colleagues, and updated his resume in the hopes of finding a more flexible job before Jan. 2.
“The new policy is less flexible than pre-COVID and does not respect the needs of employees to take care of their health, their family, or work-life balance,” Jared scoffs. “I will not go back.”
While he was complying with the three-day policy, he refused to return to working in a cubicle five days a week when Amazon’s competitors are still offering some working from home—and he thinks many others will do the same.
“As a top performer with prior MAANG (Meta, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google) experience in this tight market, I believe it will be fairly easy to find a new role that is at least hybrid,” Jared adds.
“One of my co-workers put in his notice on Monday. I expect others to follow.”
He’s not wrong. Rumors of a stricter RTO were enough ammunition to inspire Ben to quit—he took “voluntary termination” two months ago and has now started his own firm.
Likewise, Lisa, a marketing leader in Europe, has called time on her four years at Amazon. After hearing about Jassy’s announcement via the news, the 40-something says she immediately started reaching out to recruiters.
“This new mandate goes against so many of the leadership principles that we supposedly hold so dear,” she says, adding that she has been a “top-rated employee year on year” thanks to working from home.
“I’ve constantly delivered for this business and their reward is to order me back into the office, where I will sit at my desk either writing docs or sitting on calls,” Lisa adds. “I don’t want to work for a business that clearly has so little respect for me.”
Every job that Lisa has applied for offers hybrid work, and she’s confident she’ll find a more flexible employer before the New Year.
Within 48 hours of Amazon’s new policy going public, she had already secured two job interviews.
“I will always work hard, but now I want to work for a company that works hard for me too.”
Interviewee names have been changed for anonymity.
