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Amazon exec says it’s time for workers to ‘disagree and commit’ to office return — “I don’t have data to back it up, but I know it’s better.” (fortune.com)
submitted 2 years ago by [M, B] to c/technology@lemmy.world
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Amazon exec says it’s time for workers to ‘disagree and commit’ to office return — “I don’t have data to back it up, but I know it’s better.”::“We’re here, we’re back. It’s working,” an Amazon Studios head said in a meeting, before acknowledging a lack of evidence.

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[–] 122 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Amazon monitors and logs and analyzes everything. As a company they are all about data. If they find something that will get the package out the door one half second faster, they'll spend millions rolling it out everywhere.

If he doesn't have the data, there is zero chance that means the data doesn't exist. That means the data paints a very different picture and he has chosen to ignore it.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    The data does exist and shows one thing: the death of commercial property and long term leases accruing cost without creating value.

    This is incompatible with capitalism and so it's working hard to eliminate the incongruence.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    The funny thing is, it's compatible with capitalism, just people are either afraid of change or invested in the old ways.

    Amazon would love a 1% increase in employee productivity, unless it means $500MM worth of lease breaking fees and shareholders grilling them for why they signed those leases in the first place. Or worse they bought the building, and now have to sell it at a big discount.

    Everyone's invested in commercial real estate because it was a cash cow. Now the party's over, and rather than acknowledge that lots of people (and cities) have a financial incentive to try and keep the party going.

    Of course the shitty thing is the big losers in all this are the individual people. The workers in a city lose when property values (and cost of living as a result) are so high they can't afford rent. The workers in a company lose when they have to waste time and money commuting. But nobody seems to give a shit about the little guy...

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  • [+] -24 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    You realize this is a self defeating point, right? If they knew the workers were more efficient at home they would commit to total WFH.

    The logical conclusion from your claims is not that the data contradicts what he wants to be true, but that the data confirms that return to office is better, but for some reason he can't share that information.

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  • [–] 14 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    No, it does not. It means that they think it's more profitable for shareholders.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    So the logical conclusion is that it's better for the share holders for the employees to be less productive?

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    It's not that simple. There's also the issue of paying rent for offices which also feeds into shareholder (although possibly different shareholders) profits, etc. I'm no expert, but I have a feeling this is all very complicated.

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  • [–] -1 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    I can't come up with a care where making their employees less productivity is better for the shareholders simply because they are paying for space somewhere. you'll have to explain this.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Okay I can do that.

    Pre-pandemic- Amazon says offices are important. Signs 25 year leases for lots of office space.
    Pandemic hits. Everyone goes WFH. Data shows people work just as well from home. Company publicly announces that they are running at full productivity. Shareholders love it.
    Now we're here. Employees are WFH and loving it. Middle management is chafing because they like being able to manage their employees by walking to desks. Upper management is unhappy because they like having a big corner office at the top of the building humming with workers. Workers are happier than ever.
    Upper management says 'if we embrace WFH, we'll have way too much office space and leases that will cost a fortune to break. If we do that and take the hit, the shareholders will ask why we didn't have the vision to do that in the first place, before we signed for this expensive office. The managers we listen to all hate WFH too. So we'll push RTO.' And in the grand scheme of things, a few % employee productivity doesn't mean that much...

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Thats plausible, but pretty complicated. I would absolutely invoke Occam's razor here tho

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Okay then even simpler, management likes having workers they can physically see and thinks it makes them more productive. Amazon may relentlessly pursue efficiency, but they also make choices in how they do that based on their own culture. For example, if they paid their employees more but weeded out all but the best employees, which is the strategy Netflix uses, that might also increase efficiency more than just cycling through employees like disposable robots. But they don't do that (or even try it) because that isn't their culture.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Pretty sure Amazon gets kickbacks from the city of Seattle to keep the offices filled with ppl

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Amazon is massive. Much of their overhead goes to workers, and if the workers were more efficient at home, the city would have to offer a ton of money to make up for the most productivity. So unless you have some convincing evidence otherwise, this is hard to believe.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago* (1 child)

    "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." --Anais Nin

    A manager who thinks physical access to employees makes him an effective manager is going to push for that, even if the data says otherwise. We see this in every industry. During pandemic the headline was 'productivity is flat or increasing with WFH', now it's 'time for RTO'.

    It's also not just about management, it's about real estate. Companies including Amazon have paid billions for office space, including long term leases that will be very costly to break. So if they say WFH is the future, they'll have to explain to their shareholders why they signed for (apparently unnecessary) office space that's hurting the bottom line.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    You're contradicting the top level commenters point that they relentlessly pursue efficiency. Now it's that the pursue shareholder happiness. I wonder why you didn't correct them, but me.

    It's almost like we're throwing explanations against the wall looking for something to stick.

    But the simple counter is the simple explanation: we didn't know a pandemic was coming and couldn't foresee what no one was able to foresee: a rapid shift to WFH. We held the offices as we didn't know that WFH could be a long term solution. Now that we are pretty confident our workforce is more productive at home, we've decided to cut our office space losses.

    No one would bat an eye at this.

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