Reading about Amazon and this Return to Office initiative. They apparently have a multi phase program which looks like the end goal is everyone (with few exceptions) will be int he office for at a minimum of 3 days a week.

Phase 1 was to go through all the remote employees (those not tied to a building), and either submit and override for their remote status to remain or else they would be linked to the nearest amazon office. Phase 1 looks to be wrapping up now.

Phase 2 is starting with some teams, and it appears to be a consolidation of the team to being in a minimum number of locations (seems to be 2 hubs per team). Anyone not at the hub will have to relocate to the hub. This is being called the "Return to Hub" phase.

If someone does not relocate to a hub by a set date (say 6 months), Amazon says the employee will be forced to "voluntary resign" from their job without any severance or unemployment benefits.

This seems highly aggressive for any company to take. Curious if anyone has other examples of companies using this approach to let employees go without any severance/cost.

https://hrexecutive.com/what-amazons-voluntary-resignation-policy-means-for-rto-trends/

So if I understand this correctly, it's basically "come to work, or you will have deemed to have resigned". I don't have a problem with it.

It doesn't sound much different that what we used to call "job abandonment". If someone didn't show up for x number of days (I honestly can't remember the number, but want to say two weeks), we deemed it a job abandonment, shut off all access, and terminated the employee with no severance.

but i do see your point here.... Amazon wants to reshuffle where the business is located.... you have to move with them, or get left behind.

Foamcows said:

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but i do see your point here.... Amazon wants to reshuffle where the business is located.... you have to move with them, or get left behind.

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No problem with shuffling how things are located...and if the positions in question were deemed to be remote only during the pandemic, but potentially could end up in office, then no real issue. If they hired somebody for a remote position though (and it was made clear the position was intended/expected to stay remote), and they're changing the rules then I think it's crappy to act like this is the employees decision. Make your choice, but pay your people out if you're moving the goalposts.

Only comparable situations I've personally seen were a company moving their headquarters and most of their operations from one state to another. They basically told their old employees you don't have to go to the new location, but if you don't, you would not be considered for new roles/positions....wondering if any companies have done that (move their entire operation physically) and approached it like this (follow us or we're considering you to have resigned). Perhaps it is more normal than I realize.

Color me uninformed but if a company I worked for told me to work from the office or quit that to me is the company's decision. My daughter works fraud for a major bank, she said the office productivity during Covid with everyone but the boss working from home was up over 20% above what it is now with everyone in the office, and management is fine with that. She'd rather work from home but her seniority prevents her from looking elsewhere, or so she says, so in she goes every day. The one concession management made was employees could pick their hours. She picked 0530-1430. She basically works alone until close to 0900.

If I had to guess I'd say Amazon made it clear when hiring the # of remote workers they did that it wasn't a guarantee to be remote forever.

The Return to Hub is where things seem to get sloppy as they are painting with a big brush...

There are some people who were hired to be fully remote (aka work from home). Including some who were hired pre covid. This includes individuals that were hired during covid with the understanding the role would be fully remote. In phase one it sounds like they were told to report to their local office.

There are other people who were remote in the sense they were in a regional office, while their team was back in the main office.

In the return to hub phase, these individuals are being now being given the option to move to their teams hub (or voluntarily resign with no severance). The office they either were recently reassigned to, or have always been assigned to is not shutting down. Think of it as a massive reshuffling of what building/floor/desk everyone sits on, but in this case, your new desk can be 100's of miles away.

The pendulum is swinging back in the other direction, and seems to be going past the pre covid mark.

From what I have gathered, relo is hit or miss. Sounds like it's only on the table if someone wants to move to Seattle.

keep in mind, most of this is sourced on twitter... so who knows how solid this is

OldArmyCT said:

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Color me uninformed but if a company I worked for told me to work from the office or quit that to me is the company's decision. My daughter works fraud for a major bank, she said the office productivity during Covid with everyone but the boss working from home was up over 20% above what it is now with everyone in the office, and management is fine with that. She'd rather work from home but her seniority prevents her from looking elsewhere, or so she says, so in she goes every day. The one concession management made was employees could pick their hours. She picked 0530-1430. She basically works alone until close to 0900.

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thats a smart schedule.... I feel the only reason WFH increased some peoples productivity is they didn't have all the distractions from others.

Are these people that when they went to work from home they decided to relocate and now they are called back to an office that they aren't near now? I don't feel sorry for them if that is the case.