AWS CEO suggests workers leave if they’re not returning to the office: Report

Amazon’s new in-office work policy starts Jan. 2

Amazon Web Services CEO Matt Garman has reportedly suggested workers who don’t want to abide by an upcoming five-days-a-week in-office work policy can find employment elsewhere.

According to Reuters, an all-hands meeting for the Seattle-based cloud giant included Garman telling attendees that "if there are people who just don't work well in that environment and don't want to, that's OK, there are other companies around."

"When we want to really, really innovate on interesting products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when we're not in-person,” Garman said, according to Reuters.

CRN has reached out to AWS for comment.

Andy Jassy, CEO of AWS parent Amazon.com, revealed the new policy in September. It will take effect Jan. 2. Amazon’s current policy requires employees to work in the office at least three days a week with the ability to work from home two days per week.

Garman said that 90 per cent of the workers he’s talked to support the new policy, Reuters said. His comments echoed Jassy’s concern that a reliance on remote work has stifled innovation and collaboration.

A variety of tech giants have been revisiting remote working policies put into effect at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic. IBM ordered more in-office work earlier this year.

Salesforce has been mandating select workers to come into the office four to five days a week started Oct. 1, according to The San Francisco Standard.

Dell has been making hybrid workers come into the office 39 days a quarter–salespeople have been in-office five days a week since September–and said remote workers aren’t eligible for promotions or role changes, according to Business Insider.

This article originally appeared on CRN UK sister website CRN.