Amazon and Google unveil plans to send workers back to the office
Amazon and Google have both made changes to their work-from-home policies as they look to encourage workers back into the office.
In a memo to employees, Amazon said it expected most of its corporate staff to be back in the office by early autumn.
The company said it planned to return to an “office-centric culture as our baseline”. It added: “We believe it enables us to invent, collaborate, and learn together most effectively.”
It comes after Google said it will allow staff to return to the office on a voluntary basis from next month.
The tech giant, which was one of the first companies to allow home-working when the pandemic hit last year, will continue its current work-from-home policy until 1 September.
But following this it will only allow staff to work from home for more than 14 days a year if they applied to do so.
“It’s now been a year since many of us have been working from home, and the thought of returning to the office might inspire different emotions,” Fiona Cicconi, Google’s head of people operations, wrote in an email to staff.
Google is currently planning for a wider reopening in September, when staff will be expected to come in at least three days a week.
The company advised staff to get vaccinated but said it was not making jabs mandatory for a return to the office.
Tech giants such as Google and Amazon are likely to lead the way on future working habits after the pandemic.
However, their approach differs from that of Twitter, which has told employees they can work from home “forever”.
Facebook is planning to reopen its offices from May, but boss Mark Zuckerberg has previously said that half of the company’s staff could be working remotely in the next five to 10 years.