Amazon is leaning in hard on its plan to get employees back to the office by making exceptions to the policy extremely rare. That's forcing some staff to consider drastic measures to comply with the order.
The company recently started enforcing a "return-to-hub" approach by asking employees to work from the central locations assigned to each individual team instead of any office nearest to their current city. Workers who refuse to relocate near their teams' "hub" offices will either have to find a new job internally or leave through a "voluntary resignation."
Amazon managers told Insider they've been directed to only give exceptions in extremely rare cases. One person said the company has a goal to keep the number of exceptions to a single-digit percentage across the company, including regional sales teams and protected groups, leaving a very small amount for individual cases. The sources asked not to be identified discussing sensitive topics.
Amazon RTO hacks
Employees, as a result, are going to extreme lengths. One user on Blind, an anonymous discussion app, posted that their husband was considering living in a van near Amazon's Seattle headquarters so they don't have to relocate their family from Texas. Another user said they were considering flying to Seattle from San Francisco every week. These people must have an official work email to post on Blind.
Other employees told Insider about other hacks to deal with Amazon's strict new policy. One idea: Use a family member's address near an Amazon office and fly in when necessary. Another: Indicate to Amazon that you plan to comply with the order and use the time they'd have to relocate to find a new job.
For those who choose to relocate, Amazon is giving up to a few months to find a new place. One current employee, who spoke to Insider on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, said Amazon offered a lump sum package of roughly $7,000 in cash and temporary housing for about a month in the new city they're moving to.
Still, the relocation mandate is causing a huge commotion internally, with many employees scrambling to figure out what to do. Amazon's unusually contentious return-to-office process has caused an employee walkout, an internal petition, and repeated questions during internal meetings.
'Deliver Butts to Seats'
Earlier this week, in a widely shared post on an internal forum, one employee mocked Amazon's famous leadership principles. The post, titled "Leadership Principles for RTO," tweaked the 16 business dictums to show employee frustration over the issue.
One of the principles from the mock list was "Deliver Butts to Seats," a parody of "Deliver Results."
"Leaders focus on the key inputs for their business, which are of course corporate real estate profits, and deliver them by forcing their employees to go to a hub office three days a week," it said. "Despite setbacks, they send nasty emails and put people on Pivot to ensure compliance." Pivot is one of Amazon's notorious performance improvement plans.
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