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Amazon Makes It Harder for Disabled Employees to Work from Home

(www.bloomberg.com)
283 points belter | 4 comments | 13 Nov 24 21:16 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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no_wizard ◴[13 Nov 24 21:45 UTC] No.42130354[source]▶
For a company that is supposedly data driven like Amazon likes to tout, they have zero data that RTO would provide the benefits they claim[0]. They even admitted as much[1].

I wouldn't be shocked if one day some leaked memos or emails come to light that prove it was all about control and/or backdoor layoffs, despite their PR spin that it isn't (what competent company leader would openly admit this?)

[0]: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/over-500-amazon-...

[1]: https://fortune.com/2023/09/05/amazon-andy-jassy-return-to-o...

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tpurves ◴[13 Nov 24 22:23 UTC] No.42130821[source]▶
They'll have plenty of data to support the primary motivation: that enforcing arbitrary RTO policies will absolutely aid in generating staff turnover and voluntary attrition without having to payout severance costs. The policy gives them less direct control over who they lose, but I'm sure the data also points to any critical replacement employees being willing to work for less on average. That's the data they are looking at.
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regularfry ◴[13 Nov 24 22:33 UTC] No.42130938[source]▶
I wouldn't be surprised if it's even more straightforward than that. They've got some very expensive office space that's extremely under-utilised, and they're probably at risk of the rent getting raised on a lot of it unless they can increase footfall.
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heavyset_go ◴[14 Nov 24 00:35 UTC] No.42131846[source]▶
The ownership class has stake in commercial and prime residential real estate. You don't have to look further than that.
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1. grugagag ◴[14 Nov 24 00:58 UTC] No.42131998{3}[source]▶
I speculate this is part of it, and this is tied to a lot of key people who can enforce this type of move. Big companies also want to legitimize their business by having a presence. Without any presence virtually anyone start competing them, chipping at their business.
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2. DanielHB ◴[14 Nov 24 10:41 UTC] No.42134903[source]▶
Both your arguments seems a bit tinfoil-hat. Grandparent is implying that all the execs making the RTO decisions are personally invested in business real state (why would multiple execs own a bunch of downtown real state?). Although a point could be made for companies who own their real state wanting to prop its value up before liquidating (so a pump and dump) it still stretches believability.

You are implying most companies really think that much about long-term unquantifiable effects.

I can see a better argument being made about executive with big ego likes sitting at the top of his ivory tower (his top-level corner-office) looking over the masses below him.

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3. grugagag ◴[14 Nov 24 13:55 UTC] No.42136153[source]▶
Im not implying most companies think long term, just the very large ones and their interests are tied to some commercial real eastate they don’t want to lose on. Im not sure I understand your tinfoil hat argument here, at least it doesn’t make sense to me in this context.
4. heavyset_go ◴[14 Nov 24 17:37 UTC] No.42138740[source]▶
> Grandparent is implying that all the execs making the RTO decisions are personally invested in business real state (why would multiple execs own a bunch of downtown real state?)

That is not what I am implying. The owner/investor class have portfolios that depend on commercial and prime real estate holding, and continuing to increase in, value. They might not personally own buildings themselves, but they own companies and financial instruments that do.

Maybe execs themselves are lucky enough to be that asset rich, maybe they aren't, but it's their jobs to call the shots based on the desires of their respective boards.