Opinion - Amazon, Microsoft, RTO and the Future of Work-From-Home
The recent announcement by Amazon to return to the office has been held as many as the end of the work-from-home era. Forbes called the Return-to-office a “warning for the future of work” .
Personally, my hot take (I hate that phrase) is that Amazon returning to the office is completely ‘on brand’ for the company whose employees pee in bottles during their shifts. Conversely, Microsoft also Seattle Headquartered have decided to keep work-from-home as long as productivity continues at its present rate, although the norm is hybrid.
These two corporate behemoths show two angles in the Work-From-Home debate.
Amazon: Get back to the office you serfs.
Microsoft: The peasants may work from home as we are benevolent lords.
Why are Amazon and Microsft following these paths?
Although I am jesting with Microsoft's claim, with Amazon, calling their workers serfs would be an insult to Russian aristocracy. Serfs were an asset that worked your land, you would treat them badly, but you’d still want them to function. Amazon is the true “Fordism” business, willing to burn out its workers over three years. Amazon designs everything for all staff to be replaceable, giving it maximum power in its labour relations.
However, Amazon is facing three problems currently, Pandemic overhiring, knowledge workers' labour relations and increasing costs.
Amazon, are wanting a return to office for three reasons:
- An RTO mandate will push workers who can leave, to leave, reducing the need to follow downsizing and redundancy procedures in the new year, which solves the overhiring issue.
- It re-establishes control over Amazon’s workers, which for a company like Amazon is a key component in its operations. Which will help stop important technology workers, working together in their interests.
- Ensures that its office space is utilised and removes the costs of remote stipends. Reducing costs.
Ultimately it is about rejigging Amazon for a post-pandemic world and correcting the overhiring and other costly measures undertaken.
For Microsoft, the answer is simpler: We sell the world's most popular software for facilitating remote work and inter-office collaboration. Keeping home working promotes this and sends the signal to our customers to keep doing it as well.
Amazon is not bad, or evil for going down this route. As a business, it is all about reducing costs for customers and increasing its profits. Those things are put above employee well-being because it has created systems that allow it to make employees completely replaceable.
The return-to-office mandate is the ultimate demonstration of this.
What does this mean for Work-From-Home?
If you work at Amazon, it means you are going to have to slog around to find a new work-from-home job. If you are Microsoft you have a great opportunity over the next couple of weeks to hire some great office staff that want to work from home.
In the bigger picture, big corporate employers seem to be fitting into two models of work-from-home: Work-from-home is not allowed, or Work-From-Home as long as you are more productive.
This is a sad state of affairs.
For smaller companies, Work-From-Home will become both a selling point to recruit staff, a retention tool, and a tool for increasing productivity.
Work-from-home is not going away, it just might be dying in the biggest corporations.
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