Amazon's five-day week requirement will not backfire, but shows untapped potential

Say you want to eat a hamburger at your local bar and suddenly you decide to have the grilled chicken, Bock suggests. The chicken is fine, “no better than the hamburger, no worse.” Of course, you then go back to the burger or the norm.

“You go back to what you feel comfortable with,” said Bock Assets. The co-founder of AI data platform Gretel is an expert in corporate culture and was a senior human resources manager at Google from 2006 to 2016. During that time, the tech giant was named the best place to work dozens of times. “Why would you ever eat the chicken sandwich again?” he asked.

It's a classic story of executives falling back into the familiar schedule of fully in-person work after five years of trying or vacillating with flexible, remote or hybrid work plans. This week, Amazon joined those ranks, as Jassy increased the required number of in-person days from three to five in a note to employees on Monday. Amazon responded to requests for comment by citing Assets to the said memo.

The memo, posted on the company's website, emphasized the importance of in-person presence as a breeding ground for company culture and collaboration. It also outlined a change in structure to reduce headcount in leadership positions.

Bock called this move “a triumph of traditional management over innovative management,” explaining that the latter style is more difficult and requires more data to implement.

Why do managers hate flexible working hours?

Hybrid work can successfully increase productivity if managed well, said Bock, citing early studies, the work of companies like Atlassian hosting community events, and the success of employers running focus days. In the early days of the pandemic, productivity increased after companies put effort into their plans. In turn, employees responded positively, added Bock, author of the New York Times bestseller Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google that will change the way you live and lead.

But doing hybrid work really well requires resources, a clear plan and, most importantly, buy-in. Most companies don't want to put in the effort without guaranteed results, thereby dampening the potential benefits of hybrid work arrangements. In the absence of an effective flexible schedule, the downsides of hybrid work become all the more apparent – including a diffuse culture, a sense of disconnection, a generic culture and managers who feel out of control, he said.

“From a corporate perspective, there's no clear, overwhelming evidence that this is a good thing,” Bock said. And because it's such a shift, leaders need unexpected proof to change course. “Employees love it” because it values ​​their autonomy and freedom. But they lose out when employers, especially large ones like Amazon, which have struggled because of their size, opt out of hybrid plans.

In some ways, companies failed at hybrid work and abandoned the new strategy when it was no longer sexy enough. Or, to put it another way, leaders “created a self-fulfilling prophecy that is now driving people kicking and screaming back to the office.”

Will Amazon really lose talent?

Amazon’s announcement was not exactly welcomed with open arms. Some employees expressed dismay and disapproval of the mandate, with one writing on Slack that it was a sign of “backwards steps,” according to Business Insider.

Companies risk losing their best talent if they don't be flexible enough, but Bock seems to think Amazon isn't taking a big risk here. “Very few people are voting with their feet,” he says, adding that the strategy is unlikely to hurt the company in the long run. While it's controversial and many remote or hybrid Amazon workers are likely to be upset, many won't leave, he noted. And successful companies will still be able to draw on a deep talent pool even as they issue polarizing ultimatums, he said.

Bock sees the new management strategy as a way to limit micromanagement. It is a “very clear call for more productivity, but also a call for managers to focus on actually making things better,” he said. He referred to Google's Rule of Seven, which states that no managers are hired for teams of fewer than seven employees in order to distribute their time and prevent interference that could border on control.

Nevertheless, with all these changes, “he imagines[s] it's going to be a very stressful time for managers at Amazon.” Although he's facing criticism online, this is nothing unusual for Amazon. It “reflects their values,” namely a tight corporate culture that's intense and rooted in tight leadership, he said.

Bock called the memo “entirely as expected and actually quite thoughtful,” praising their data-driven approach and adding that many companies will likely follow suit. And that approach may be better in the long run, as people crave social connection and tend to lose that in poorly executed hybrid plans, he added.

Rather than simply issuing a decree like a bank CEO who simply thinks RTO is important, Amazon ties its mandate to internal data and company culture, Bock explained. While some companies tried to wait for the (still impending) downturn to impose their will on the office, and others took the gradual “boil the frog” route, neither of these paths proved particularly effective.

But Amazon will likely prevail. “They're going to enforce it … they're going to enforce it,” Bock said. He has “no doubt they're going to measure it and monitor it” and that “they're going to fire people for noncompliance.”

And there could be more regulations to come. Amazon is a harbinger of others, and “all of technology has been moving in that direction,” Bock noted. In other words, “most companies just don't make the effort necessary and just keep ordering the cheeseburger.”