Amazon CEO Andy Jassy has announced significant changes to the company’s work culture and organisational structure.
In an internal memo to employees, Jassy outlined plans to reduce management layers and return to full-time office work.
The tech giant aims to increase the ratio of individual contributors to managers by at least 15 per cent by the end of Q1 2025.
Amazon CEO unveils plans to reduce management layers
“Having fewer managers will remove layers and flatten organisations more than they are today. If we do this work well, it will increase our teammates’ ability to move fast, clarify and invigorate their sense of ownership, drive decision-making closer to the front lines where it most impacts customers (and the business), decrease bureaucracy, and strengthen our organizations’ ability to make customers’ lives better and easier every day. We will do this thoughtfully, and our PxT team will work closely with our leaders to evolve our organizations to accomplish these goals over the next few months,” Jassy said in the memo.
Additionally, Amazon will require employees to work from the office full-time starting 2 January 2025, moving away from the current three-day-a-week policy. Jassy explained.
“When we look back over the last five years, we continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant. I’ve previously explained these benefits (February 2023 post), but in summary, we’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another. If anything, the last 15 months we’ve been back in the office at least three days a week has strengthened our conviction about the benefits.”
The company will also reintroduce assigned desk arrangements in its US headquarters locations.
Jassy emphasised the importance of maintaining Amazon’s culture, adding that, “keeping your culture strong is not a birthright. You have to work at it all the time. When you consider the breadth of our businesses, their associated growth rates, the innovation required across each of them, and the number of people we’ve hired the last 6-8 years to pursue these endeavours, it’s pretty unusual—and will stretch even the strongest of cultures.”
These changes are intended to improve decision-making, increase ownership, and strengthen the company’s ability to innovate for customers.
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