Effective January 2025, all Amazon employees are required to return to the office.
Citing the “significant” advantages of in-person collaboration, the tech giant previously mandated employees to return to the office at least three days per week in 2023 but moving forward, employees can expect in-person work to return to pre-pandemic levels.
You may think that if you don’t currently work for Amazon or have no interest in joining the company in the future, this won’t affect you. However, some believe that Amazon’s return-to-office (RTO) mandate is a sign of things to come. And while that’s not true across the board, it’s not exactly wrong either.
Some companies look to enterprises like Amazon as a model; how they function, what they do to generate unprecedented revenue, and what they can get away with. The RTO mandate could embolden other companies to enforce similar directives.
The idea that more employers will push back against remote work and force employees back into the office is discouraging. Even before the pandemic, most U.S. employees wanted greater workplace flexibility; the COVID-19 pandemic simply made that wish a reality and now, some employers want to return to the way things were. But the truth is we will never go back to the way things were before the pandemic and the way we work shouldn’t either.
The bad news is that more companies will follow in Amazon’s footsteps, issuing their own RTO mandates. The good news is that Amazon doesn’t speak for everyone; remote-first companies like Zapier, Taskrabbit, and Affirm will still prioritize flexible work. The companies that understand how beneficial remote work is for working parents, caregivers, individuals with disabilities, and any employee wanting greater work-life balance will continue to offer options that don’t require you to go into the office five days a week.
The tide has not yet turned on the rigid workplace rules that have stifled U.S. workers for far too long, but remote work is not ending. If anything, the shift to a fully flexible workforce is just getting started.
