AWS CEO says employees unhappy with 5-day work mandate can leave

AmazonOn Thursday, the company’s cloud chief gave employees a candid message about the company’s recently announced five-day in-office mandate.

Matt Jarman, CEO of Amazon Web Services, said during a comprehensive meeting at the company’s second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, that employees who do not agree with Amazon’s new policy can leave.

“If there are people who don’t do well in that environment and don’t want to, that’s OK, there are other companies around,” Jarman said, according to a transcript seen by CNBC. “At Amazon, we want to be in an environment where we work together, and we feel that a collaborative environment is very important to our innovation and our culture.”

Amazon has noted that working in the office helps teams be more collaborative and effective, a company spokesperson told CNBC.

Jarman’s comments were previously reported by Reuters.

Amazon announced the new mandate last month. The company’s previous position on returning to work required company employees to be at their offices at least three days a week. Employees have until January 2 to comply with the new policy.

The company is abandoning pandemic-era remote work policies as it looks to keep up with competitors Microsoftand OpenAI Google In the race to develop generative artificial intelligence. It’s one of the key tasks for Jarman, who took over AWS in June after his predecessor, Adam Selipski, stepped down from the position.

The move sparked backlash from some Amazon employees who say they are working as productively from home or in a hybrid work environment as in the office. Others say the mandate puts additional pressure on families and caregivers.

Nearly 37,000 employees joined an internal Slack channel created last year to advocate for remote work and share grievances over the return-to-work mandate, according to a person familiar with the matter.

At the all-hands meeting, Jarman said he was talking to employees and “nine out of 10 people are very excited about this change.” He acknowledged that there will be instances where employees have some flexibility.

“What we really mean by this is we want to have an office environment,” Jarman said, pointing to an example of a scenario in which an employee might want to work from home one day with their manager’s approval to focus on their work in a quiet environment.

“They are fine,” he said.

Jarman said the mandate is important to preserve Amazon’s business and culture “Leadership principles” It is a list of more than a dozen business philosophies intended to guide employee decisions and goals. He pointed to Amazon’s principle of “disagreement and commitment,” the idea that employees should respectfully discuss and respond to each other’s ideas. This practice may be particularly difficult to implement via Amazon’s video conferencing software, called Chime, Jarman said.

“I don’t know if you guys have tried to disagree on a Chime call — it’s just too difficult,” Jarman said.

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