Amazon Makes It Harder for Disabled Employees to Work from Home

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...

I think it’s simpler than this.

Managing people remotely is hard.

Most managers still aren’t good at managing remote employees.

When managers aren’t managing well, “productivity” goes down (however you measure it).

So managers internally advocate for RTO because it’s easier to manage people when they’re in person. (Many people also miss the office, but that group tends to be way less vocal on HN)

And since the company already has the office space, RTO is “free” to do.

And if they’re already looking to cut head count, attrition as a result would be icing on the cake making the decision even more appealing to upper management.

In other words, I think RTO would have still happened 4 years after Covid regardless of whether companies are trying to reduce staff or not. “They’re secretly using RTO to fire us” doesn’t make much sense - companies are very capable of doing layoffs. Hiding or disguising the layoff is more work than just flat out laying people off.

If there’s a leaked memo, I wouldn’t be surprised if

If you can't manage people remotely

then you cannot manage people.