Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has said in a message to staff that he was worried the company he has presided over since 2021 was seeing its corporate culture diluted by too many bureaucratic layers. And by flexible work.

The last part of his message is getting a lot of media attention, even though Jassy started his memo by detailing plans for eliminating the bureaucratic elements at Amazon. At first, I was critical of this coverage, since it seemed like a cheap way to get readers all fired up over work-from-home (WFH) arrangements – a topic that has preoccupied many people who are working, both during and since the COVID pandemic.

I see the two concepts of culture and flexible work arrangements as inextricably linked. And I contend that culture is about your people, and some of your people (more than a slim minority) need to work some weekdays from home. So your business could suffer from a WFH policy that is too-draconian.

The bureaucracy

Jassy begins by saying Amazon has grown quickly and substantially over the years, adding a lot of managers. “In that process, we have also added more layers than we had before,” he wrote.

“It’s created artifacts that we’d like to change (eg, pre-meetings for the pre-meetings for the decision meetings, a longer line of managers feeling like they need to review a topic before it moves forward, owners of initiatives feeling less like they should make recommendations because the decision will be made elsewhere, etc),” he says.

He commits to having his senior leadership team members increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15% by the end of Q1 2025 to remove layers and flatten the organization.

Jassy says he has created a “Bureaucracy Mailbox” so employees can submit any examples of where they see bureaucracy or unnecessary processes that have crept in and can be rooted out.

The WFH policy

Jassy then refers to a February 2023 memo in which he had outlined the reasons why working together in the office is better for learning, collaborating, brainstorming and strengthening Amazon’s culture.

In the time since that memo, in which Amazon had mandated an (at least) three-day-a-week office attendance policy, Jassy said that the policy convinced “us” that the company’s various teams are better connected when working in close proximity to one another.

Jassy says he is optimistic these changes will better help the company accomplish the goals of inventing solutions to customers’ problems while strengthening its culture.

He then said the new policy would be five days a week in the office, beginning January 2, 2025. But there are some qualifications:

• If you already have a remote work exception approved through your manager, it will still apply.
• Just like everyone did before the pandemic, if you or your child is sick, have some sort of house emergency, will be on the road seeing customers or partners, or need a day or two to finish coding in a more isolated environment, you can work remotely.
• But the expectation is that people will be in the office, outside of extenuating circumstances like the ones mentioned above.

Jassy then says he is optimistic these changes will better help the company accomplish the goals of inventing solutions to customers’ problems while strengthening its culture and the effectiveness of its teams.

Point taken

I’m not sure anyone can say Jassy doesn’t have some good points about top-heavy businesses bogged down by pre-meetings and meetings. There have been plenty of studies about too many managers exerting a heavy financial and red-tape burden on businesses.

And chances are you’ve been in face-to-face meetings in which you suddenly understand someone’s role at the firm or their perspective or figure out how that person can help you or you them. Those are irreplaceable moments that sometimes – not always, but sometimes – can only arise from the organic nature of human beings talking about their work and then maybe walking through the hallway or cafeteria to continue the conversation, letting it take more shape.

“Wow, I never knew how important this part of the process was to the whole project” or “When she showed me how to do it, I realized I had wasted so much time.” You know what I’m talking about. It can help you learn about the skills and personalities of your coworkers in such a way that could help you work together more effectively and learn about the little details that were not on the agenda but prove invaluable.

And many of us of a certain age who have worked for businesses pre-virtual meeting technology can point to instances in which more face time with a leader at the business lead to a promotion, raise or future new job at another firm. Mentoring and sponsoring can be done virtually. But it is best done (or at least started) in person.

Culture is your people

But it’s interesting that he ties his efforts to create a better cultural environment with both a dilution of this top-heavy apparatus and bringing more people regularly into the office each day.

This ignores the other side of working from home that is as true as what I have written above. A decent number of people do it wonderfully well, actually work longer hours because the computer is always sitting right there, can maintain good communication with their teams (thank you, technology), and have some good reasons for needing to be at home on a more regular and not intermittent basis.

Those reasons include ongoing childcare needs, since your kids get out of school well before you can be home from your job, or caring for another family member – both of which cost a lot of money right at the time someone is telling you to spend more on commuting-related expenses.

About six-in-ten hybrid workers (59%) say they work from home three or more days in a typical week, while 41% say they do so two days or fewer.

And studies have demonstrated the positive effects of remote work on employee mental and physical wellness, with some noting that companies can lose out on talented new employees by having a too-strict mandate.

Studies also show that flexible workplaces can lead to a more diverse workforce by supporting employees from different geographies (and cultures) and enable your employees to use their commuting time in ways that can benefit the company, such as through educational pursuits.

Although accommodations might be made for those who live “a distance” from the office, it’s a tricky conversation to draw a line at a certain commuting duration over another. I get it that such line-drawing needs to happen – but when it’s happening to not allow any remote work at all it’s not exactly a building block for corporate camaraderie.

And the requirement of five days is stricter (if not much stricter) than the vast majority of businesses – certainly in the US – are requiring, particularly of non-executive leadership-level employees.

According to Pew Research, among hybrid workers who are not self-employed, most (63%) say their employer requires them to work in person a certain number of days per week or month. About six-in-ten hybrid workers (59%) say they work from home three or more days in a typical week, while 41% say they do so two days or fewer.

Jassy’s move is a bold one that sends a statement.

But to couch it in mainly cultural terms seems disingenuous if a number of employees will not only be negatively affected (as will their families), but also generally hate it, push back against it, start looking for new work, bad-mouth their employer, and/or lose enthusiasm over their work. And when someone cannot hire the best candidate for the open spot on his/her team.

Let’s see what happens. And, there you go, I spent most of my time here talking about the WFH element too.