Amazon’s new plan: Employees in the office five days a week, more efficient management

Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) CEO Andy Jassy sent a letter to employees on Monday. One key retraction was that the e-commerce giant expects employees to return to their pre-pandemic office work schedule, meaning they’ll be there five days a week.

“We have “We’ve seen that our team members have an easier time learning, modeling, practicing, and reinforcing our culture; collaboration, brainstorming, and inventing are easier and more effective; teaching and learning from each other flows more smoothly; and teams tend to connect better with each other,” Jassy wrote.

“Before the pandemic, not everyone was in the office five days a week, every week. If you or your child were sick, if you had a home emergency, if you were on the road visiting clients or partners, if you needed a day or two to finish coding in a more isolated environment, people were working remotely. That was understandable and will continue into the future. But before the pandemic, it wasn’t a given that people would be able to work remotely two days a week and that will continue into the future — we expect people to be in the office outside of extenuating circumstances (like those listed above) or if you already have an approved remote work exception from your team leader.”

Amazon (AMZN) plans to restore assigned desks at locations that were previously set up this way, including the company’s U.S. headquarters in Puget Sound and Arlington, Virginia.

The Seattle-based company also said teams are being asked to organize to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of the first quarter of 2025. Fewer managers means removing layers and flattening organizations even more than they do now.

Amazon (AMZN) stocks fell 0.85% at 1:55 p.m. Monday. E-commerce stocks were up about 21% year over year.