Amazon back-to-office policy ‘a bummer’ for Singapore employees, but more tech firms could follow suit

SINGAPORE: Amazon’s decision to end its hybrid work policy and return to the office five days a week did not go over well with staff, the tech giant’s Singapore employees told CNA.
“There was this dire feeling that it might happen (eventually),” one employee who spoke on condition of anonymity said. But he didn’t think the company would go ahead given the global trend of remote working.
Industry observers said Amazon’s move likely signals a gradual shift by tech companies to more work-from-office days.
This will have a big impact on employee retention and recruitment, and hybrid work arrangements could become a differentiating factor for smaller tech firms in attracting talent, they added.
Earlier this week, Amazon said employees will be required to return to working at company offices five days per week beginning next year, toughening a prior three-day mandate.
Amazon has more than 2,000 workers across its business units in Singapore. In May, it announced plans to invest S$12 billion (US$8.88 billion) in Singapore by 2028 to expand its cloud computing infrastructure here.
The Amazon Singapore employee who spoke to CNA said staff had got used to hybrid working and the move to return to the office full-time runs counter to what other companies are doing.
“With everybody else in the market trimming office space and then suddenly Amazon is doing this, it didn’t sit quite well with a lot of people,” he said.
The hybrid model has been particularly helpful for employees who have children and those taking care of aged parents, he added.
Another employee said that there was some anger and uncertainty among staff on the day of the announcement, but also bemusement in the days that followed with the amount of news coverage globally.
Within the tech industry, there has been a “buzz” that employees would eventually have to return to offices, she said. “It wasn’t really surprising, it was (more of) when it would happen.” 
Veteran recruiter Neil Dyball, managing director of Hudson Singapore, said that other large tech firms would follow Amazon’s cue, but not immediately.
“As so many large tech companies got rid of their real estate, they just do not have the space right now to have their teams back” in the office full-time, he said.
Amazon’s Singapore office opened a new location a few months ago, so the company is in a “different position” to demand that staff work from the office.
It is one of the anchor tenants of IOI Central Boulevard Towers, reportedly leasing 369,000 sq ft in the new office development that opened in the central business district earlier this year.
He added that larger multinational corporations and those in the financial industry have been unofficially auditing productivity and work times over the past year or more, to help validate a decision on a full return to the office.
But going forward, smaller tech firms will use hybrid work to differentiate themselves from larger firms.
This is also because these firms no longer have the “inflated” valuations that allowed them to attract talent through compensation, said Mr Dyball.
Other observers expected tech companies to return to having more days in the office, but keep flexibility in the form of one or two remote work days or flexible start and end times, as this is what employees now expect.
“When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant,” CEO Andy Jassy wrote in a letter to employees globally on Monday.
He said the experience of a three-day mandate “strengthened our conviction about the benefits” of in-office work.
“We’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and teams tend to be better connected to one another.” 
He also said Amazon wants to “operate like the world’s largest startup”, and that means being “joined at the hip with your teammates when inventing and solving hard problems”.
Other companies known for their “hustle culture”, such as Bytedance – the parent company of TikTok – already require employees to work from the office every day, said Mr Ethan Ang, co-founder of tech talent platform Nodeflair.
However, not all experts agree.
Amazon’s move is “quite surprising” as it goes against the trend of hybrid work becoming normalised, said Mr Sachet Sethi, senior manager of tech and transformation at headhunting firm Robert Walters Singapore.
A full return to the office will make it difficult to recruit and retain talent. It can also affect the number of productive hours employees have, as some may have to commute long distances, tiring themselves out, he said.
Employees will feel that the management does not trust them and is micromanaging them. Having to be in the office every day could also cause them to feel tired or burnt out, said Mr Sethi.
In an interview with the Guardian, one of the world’s leading experts on workplace organisation, health and well-being called employers who force staff to return to the office five days a week the “dinosaurs of our age”.
“If you value and trust people to get on with their job, and give them autonomy – and flexible work is one of those – they’ll work better, you’ll retain them and they will be less likely to have a stress-related illness,” said Professor Cary Cooper, who is known for coining the term “presenteeism”.
“If you micromanage, you won’t get productivity gains, and you won’t attract the next generation.”
One of the Amazon employees CNA spoke to said that as many had joined the company during the pandemic, this hybrid work model has been all they have known and the change would take getting used to.
But she also pointed out that it is a “privilege” to have the option of working from home.
“I didn’t sign up for the job because it was hybrid,” she said. 
“Obviously (the change) would disturb my lifestyle, it would disturb some of the things I used to do but I’ll just take it and handle it along the way. If it really becomes such a pain point, I’ll just find another job that offers flexibility.”
Mr Jassy said that to accommodate the lifestyle changes necessary, the new policy would start on Jan 2 next year.
However, the employee CNA spoke to said the lead time to make changes is “quite short” given that many have built a lifestyle around hybrid work.
This could be “very, very disruptive”, in particular for those whose schedules incorporate personal commitments, he said.
Nodeflair’s Mr Ang said that while salary and job scope are still the most important factors when choosing an employer, the platform’s data suggests that about 70 per cent of employees treat hybrid work arrangements as “non-negotiable”.
After a wave of layoffs in 2023, Amazon was reported to have 300,000 to 350,000 corporate employees globally. This number is separate from their warehouse and delivery workers, who make up a much larger portion of Amazon’s total workforce of about 1.5 million.
The company continued to cut jobs earlier this year. US media has reported that some critics fear the latest work-from-office mandate may allow the company to further reduce its workforce without official layoffs.
Mr Sethi said it is “difficult to say whether it is a strategic move or protecting the company culture”.
While putting the focus back on teamwork and working quickly, “it might also encourage people to intentionally resign as they can’t be in (the) office physically due to personal commitments”.
Ultimately while it is “quite a bummer” to have to return to the office five times a week instead of three, the two Amazon Singapore employees CNA spoke to had no plans to quit. 
But not everybody shares the same sentiment, given how the new ruling could affect them in different ways, one said.
“At the end of the day, I’m looking for career prospects,” he said. “(But among others), there are talks of when the time comes, we take our stocks and we leave.”
The second employee said the return-to-office mandate was “not so concerning” for her.
“It’s down to individuals. It’s really what your wants and needs (are). If it is really misaligned, it will force you out.”