In the latest edition of Omni Talk’s Retail Fast Five, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Avalara, Mirakl, Ownit AI, and Ocampo Capital Chris Walton, Anne Mezzenga discuss: Amazon Telling Employees To Return To The Office 5 Days A Week

For the full episode head here: https://youtu.be/rECqY8C92yE?si=4FFNfACPH31T2FJ1

 Amazon has told employees to return to the office five days a week. According to CNBC, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is instructing corporate staffers to return to the office. Previously, Amazon required employees to be in the office at least three days a week. Employees have until January 2nd to sign up. Start adhering to the policy.

Oh man, that's, that's a really tough question. I possibly, I mean, there, there's so many layers to this announcement that, uh, the only thing that I'm very clear about and is, you know, who doesn't win company morale, company morale does not win with this announcement anyway, shape or form the middle managers at Amazon, they must be quaking in their boots right now.

But you know, I think at the end of the day too, like I do, I do step back and say, you know, kudos to Andrew Jassy for making the tough call here. I don't, I don't think there's one right answer to this question, but it will force Amazon to do what it needs to do, which is Learn how to operate leaner and more efficiently, which historically it's been good at doing.

Um, it's always a good skill to practice in the long run. When you're running business, it's not always an easy call to make. So that's why I give him credit, but you gotta, but for that to work, you have to provide the long term financial reward for those who get on board with coming back to five days a week versus the short term pain of doing it.

Now, Amazon's traditionally been able to provide that reward, but, but I don't know, because like, you know, the other part that I come back to in this announcement is He talks a lot about being the biggest startup in the world. Right. Yeah. But I think this announcement is proof positive that your startup days are over.

Like you've officially reached day two with this announcement, which is, which, I mean, honestly, it's kind of hubristic to think that you are Amazon and that's never going to happen to you too. I mean, it's just natural. That's going to happen. And I think this announcement shows it. That's the case. You're at that point, Amazon.

So, you know, it's a little bit concerning whether the retail follows suit or not. I don't, I don't think so. I think every CEO is going to make the decision based on what, what they think is right. Yeah. I mean, I agree with you, Chris. I think like the whole return to office part was kind of the secondary part of this, for me, the real head time headline was like how they're minimizing bureaucracy.

It wasn't interesting. Yeah. Yeah. So much so that like Jesse has created a bureaucracy mailbox. And like, I don't even know what to think about that because it's like, I mean, I've never worked for Amazon, so maybe, I mean, maybe Amazon does this better than others, but like, what do you, can you like, what are the realities of like responding to those bureaucracy emails and how much is like, I mean, you, you've managed a ton of people.

Like what, is it just going to be complaints? Like how much of those are going to be dealt with? Like. No, you're right. I mean, you're talking out of both sides of your mouth. You can't have a bureaucracy mailbox and then call yourself the biggest startup in the world. Like it just doesn't work. Right. It just, it seems, um, altruistic, but I think the, the key thing here though, is, and what Jassy's putting forward, like one, he's making a plan and he's saying like, we need to operate our business as efficiently as possible.

We need to be better than faster than, and more innovative than our competitors. It gets back to what I was saying with the de minimis exception. And, you know, US retailers having to be like, how do we really compete? And he thinks that part of that plan includes bringing people back to office. So, I mean, we're seeing this with Walmart just did this too.

We're, you know, now Amazon. And I think, you know, retailers and retail organizations across the country needs to need to be making plans for how they are more efficient, how they're more innovative and how they're better than their competitors. And I think, you know, the, If I'm a retailer, if I'm working for a retailer and I'm working remote, I think it's time to start seriously thinking about, you know, what are my plans here?

What are my, what is my future? Like, because I think that we're going to see more of this happen. So, yeah, especially if you're a middle manager who, you know, you know, if you're in that middle manager rung and you know, like to that point, it's a good, it's a good mechanism to cut your workforce in a lot of ways, right.