Amazon WFH Policy

Thats my point. Not all roles or businesses operate the same way, so there is never a single solution that will be appropriate to every case.

Some businesses will always require staff to be in the office and some will not.

It can, but the contract is usually role based.

If you have 2 people doing the same job, they are likley to have the same contract, regardless of whether they have small kids or not.

You couldn't allow the person that doesn't have kids to WFH and tell the other person that does have kids that they need to be in the office 5 days a week, when they both have the same job role.

In this situation, the employer is likley to have both of them in the office, if they feel the employee with small kids isn't as productive when WFH.

I think turning down promotions or putting efforts into arguing retaining remote/hybrid work rather than chasing pay rises is common these days. I would fall into this category - overdue a pay rise but not wanting to give them the excuse to say “come in 5 days and you can have the pay rise” or similar.

The dell situation was a good example of this:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/06/nearly-half-of-dells-workforce-refused-to-return-to-the-office/

To summarise, to get people back from fully remote to hybrid dell said anyone opting to remain fully remote would exclude themselves from being considered for promotions or applying for new internal roles. The result was almost 50% of people said fine, we will forgo the promotions to remain fully remote. Remember this was not even a full RTO mandate just come in 39 days a quarter which would be likely be a 2 or 3 days a week for most which wasn’t even unreasonable in my opinion given the 5 day RTO mandates elsewhere.

The pandemic woke a lot of people up to the true value of a good work/life balance, and as you say, are willing to forgo some things to achieve or maintain one.

If I heard someone had turned down a promotion I wouldn't immediately jump to the conclusion that it's because they are lazy or didn't want the hassle, but that they considered it carefully and have their own reasons for doing so.

My company has a 3 days in the office, 2 days wfh policy. They have said that this isn't changing anytime soon in either direction. Now if someone has a particular need to wfh more often, they can come to an agreement with their manager but that's on an individual by individual basis. I think there's only a couple of people who have that.

We also have it in our contracts that we cannot be responsible for the care of any dependent (child or adult) during our wfh periods so can't use it as childcare. My son is in senior infants so he goes to an afterschool. On the odd day where he's sick, or afterschool is closed for some reason, I have collected him & looked after him. My boss has been aware. Personally I don't know how you coud do that full time as neither work nor my child is getting the best from me. I can understand with older children in the latter part of primary school might be ok as they somewhat look after themselves.

And yes on my wfh days, I do put on the laundry, clean the kitchen etc. I do it while I'm waiting for the kettle to boil or while I'm taking my lunch. If I was in the office, I'd still be taking that tea break & lunch but I wouldn't be as productive during them.

I could never go back to 5 days a week wfh as I think I'd go insane. I also don't think I could always do 5 days in the office but if that what was mandated, I'd look at it. I don't have a crazy commute though so that does make a difference.

They got promoted twice since then as but at the time it was better to forgo to be pay increases and get the grant for their child they were the kind that had everything worked out to a t because they had to.

Delighted for you but your not the average person on here.

That was their call to make.

Unless you're suggesting they should have taken a promotion that at that time, would have left them at a financial disadvantage?

execs and senior management are at risk all will be left are the all powerful AI developers, until if course AI doesnt need you any more either 😉

By that time AI won't need humans at all.

You can fight it also, some will be successful others not. Our mandated full RTO is being successfully pushed back on by some workers, being strongly enforced on some workers, and non-compliance being ignored for some (my current situation since the mandate in February this year). I am more confident that not when it comes to a head I will be authorised to be hybrid but ignoring as long as possible is better for now.

As for working from the office prior to the pandemic - it’s a different world now and things have changed both for people individually and also in the general attitudes to work. Our family life is now all arranged around fact one of us is WFH everyday and while we have no desire to change the setup it would be difficult even if we wanted to.

If it matters to you so little why keep responding? Its fair enough if you want to take it easy WFH and avoiding any extra responsibility but it does somewhat dilute your authority to speak on what makes a productive work environment, good management of staff etc.

In my opinion of course.

Grim for Amazon workers alright. I’m finding people I work with who have been WFH since 2020 mostly fulltime, have started to appreciate and look forward to meeting up in the office at least once a week - I’d hate 5 days a week but once every week and some weeks twice is my best ideal blend

The big challenge really is - if companies have massive buildings gathering dust Mon-fri coz all staff WFH, that’s where I’m seeing a more aggressive approach from employers to get all staff back near fulltime- I’m for going in voluntary every week 1-2 times - that will keep many execs happier - especially if they can see their offices buzzing with life most days

My payslip difference from experience working in Irish and large US companies, you can also see salary data on the likes of level.fyi and blind.

Ive worked pretty much remotely for 10 years now, after leaving a 5 day a week US multinational and theres isnt a hope Id do a job that requires 5 days in the office again. I go in for 1 day and thats plenty.

The big companies couldn't give two sh1ts about their employees and will sack/make redundant anyone they like at a drop of a hat after a bumpy quarter. Youre merely a $ sign on an excel sheet that can be deleted as the last round of redundancies at Intel, Dell, IBM et al proved. Reckless stuff.

Absolute nonsense.

Tesla have already eliminated dealerships when they started up and they’re selling like hotcakes.
if you price your product accordingly then they sell themselves.

Give it 5-10 years and you’ll see I’m right.

" I find it funny.

People who worked in office before the pandemic are making so many excuses in relation to not wanting to return to the office."

The fact that you write "excuses" instead of reasons is quite telling as to where you stand. And that's fine, you're entitled to that opinion, as are others.

If a company decides to bring everyone into the office - they can. It doesn't automatically mean they may have entirely valid reasons for doing so. And how many times is that decision the result of just one personality. The interesting part is when one company in a particular line of work wants it's employees to come in all week, whereas another company in entirely the same line of business, is more than happy to let it's employees work from home.

Applying for a promotion and then turning it down does not look good and benefits nobody.

Not applying for a promotion is fine if you have a good reason for doing so.

It will be different for everyone of course, my point is that for the high paid jobs in these companies (alot of which are software engineer roles) the salaries are a lot higher and if you want a new job quickly then be prepared to take a big paycut. E.g. in US companies, a new grad will get €100k, someone with 10-15years experience is on about €200-250k. There are not many Irish companies paying more than €100k for any type of role today for engineers.