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0 points_vertigo2y ago0 comments

Amazon's approach to RTO seemed broadly effective at getting workers into the office even though it was largely bungled at level of fine details.

1. Track badging 2. Enforce RTO via chain-of-command. SVPs, VPs, and directors have aggregate RTO compliance metrics. SVPs crack the whip on VPs to get their numbers up, VPs crack the whip on their directors, and directors crack the whip on their reports, and so on, all the way down.

The actual implementation of the policy was a mess and there was poor messaging especially at the beginning. I'm pretty sure it still doesn't take PTO or illnesses into account — if there's an issue with that, you're supposed to work it out with your manager — and from what I heard they simply handled the holidays by excluding the work weeks before and after Christmas from the metrics. But, ultimately, the chain of command approach appears to have worked very well in terms of actually getting people to come in.

edit: Just noticed from your profile that you also work at Amazon, so I guess there's nothing new in my comment for you :)

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8 comments · 2 top-level

jedberg2y ago· 5 in thread

Having worked at Amazon through RTO I can tell you that it was effective at getting a lot of people to come in, but no one is happy about it and it has made work much less efficient and productive for everyone.

Most people are maliciously complying. They will come in at 11:45, grab lunch, and then leave. The clever ones then come back late at night to badge in and out again after 6pm so it looks like they were there all day, just outside. So far they aren't counting total time on campus, but when they do those people will have good numbers.

But it means they are now not working during those drive times. And they ones that are coming in all day waste a ton of everyone's time, including the remote people, looking for meeting rooms and setting up video calls, because every meeting still requires video, since all the teams are spread out over multiple offices.

And they also had to resort to denying promotions and raises for anyone who didn't RTO.

_vertigoOP2y ago

Yep, that's all true. Like I said, bungled at the level of fine details, pretty questionable if it was a good decision, but largely effective at actually getting people to come in.

People do work noticeably shorter days, a handful of people come in for less than 30 minutes (huge waste of resources and time), and yeah, there is a morale problem.

One thing I have noticed is that the more co-located a team is, the more people behave like pre-Covid — in at 9:30, out at 5. Satellite workers who are coming in are the most unhappy (for obvious reasons) and are the most likely to badge in, grab a coffee and check their emails, and then leave and finish the day at home.

mynameisnoone2y ago

Amazon is moving from being a ruthlessly-efficient corporation to becoming a pennywise pound-foolish, stifling bureaucracy to make office workers miserable and drive away talent.* As Amazon's inability to do either WfH or RTO properly, it's footgunning itself with lower productivity, lower momentum, and lower competitiveness that the Target's, Costco's, and Walmart's of the world can and will exploit. If I were the Motley Fool, I would slap a "sell" rating on AMZN because the Bezos era has ended and the era of hyperdeep PHB MBA management pyramids has begun.

* They already do their best to make delivery drivers' and warehouse workers jobs as inhuman and miserable as possible.

htss20132y ago

People are so naive to think that the big tech firms don't know exactly what theyre doing. They all more or less operate the same way.

If someone is a top performer within a highly valued part of the org, then one way or another they will be able to navigate RTO without serious problems.

For everyone else, RTO is a dial for management to fine tune voluntary attrition before having to resort to more unpleasant tools like higher PIP quotas, at a time where big tech firms all still need to cut employee costs.

woleium2y ago

they have a core value of frugality, which verges on frupidity on occasion. there is a long page on the internal wiki about the latter

ericfrazier2y ago

And Amazon really sucking lately is a reflection of all that.

mynameisnoone2y ago· 1 in thread

My (now former) neighbor worked as a manager at AWS. Their team was ~10 people who were largely remote around the world, their job role required extensive travel, and required much time in meetings with external parties. Nothing about it is conducive to RTO and it's more like an external sales position that was traditionally WfH in tech even before COVID to save on office costs. They received the RTO ultimatum from corporate and bought a house in another area. ]:

htss20132y ago

You mean they bought a house assuming they could WFH and the RTO mandate forced them to quit since it was too far away? Or they said no to the ultimatum and bought a house elsewhere?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

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8 comments · 2 top-level

jedberg2y ago· 5 in thread

And they also had to resort to denying promotions and raises for anyone who didn't RTO.

_vertigoOP2y ago

Yep, that's all true. Like I said, bungled at the level of fine details, pretty questionable if it was a good decision, but largely effective at actually getting people to come in.

People do work noticeably shorter days, a handful of people come in for less than 30 minutes (huge waste of resources and time), and yeah, there is a morale problem.

mynameisnoone2y ago

* They already do their best to make delivery drivers' and warehouse workers jobs as inhuman and miserable as possible.

htss20132y ago

People are so naive to think that the big tech firms don't know exactly what theyre doing. They all more or less operate the same way.

If someone is a top performer within a highly valued part of the org, then one way or another they will be able to navigate RTO without serious problems.

woleium2y ago

they have a core value of frugality, which verges on frupidity on occasion. there is a long page on the internal wiki about the latter

ericfrazier2y ago

And Amazon really sucking lately is a reflection of all that.

mynameisnoone2y ago· 1 in thread

htss20132y ago

You mean they bought a house assuming they could WFH and the RTO mandate forced them to quit since it was too far away? Or they said no to the ultimatum and bought a house elsewhere?

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse