A sudden change in Amazon's return-to-office policy has angered employees.

There were a number of Amazon employees who voiced their displeasure about CEO Andy Jassy's recent announcement of his return-to-office policy on Tuesday, including spamming an internal website with messages expressing their opposition to the policy.

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A group of tech workers at the company have created a Slack channel and drafted an internal petition to push back against the mandate that requires them to be back in the office three days a week starting May 1. Just days after the mandate was announced, Jassy and the Amazon leadership team, also known as the S-team, are urging the company to drop the mandate.

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Approximately 5,000 employees have signed the petition as of Tuesday night, and the group has garnered 16,000 members.

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Several employees repeatedly commented on the recording of Jassy's recent all-hands meeting on Amazon's internal news feed, Inside Amazon, expressing their dissatisfaction with the mandate.

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“Amazon has failed its role as earth's best employer by arbitrarily imposing return-to-office without providing data to support it, and despite clear evidence that it is a bad decision for employees,” as screenshots seen by Trade Algo. “I am of the opinion that this decision will be detrimental to our business and is in direct contravention of how Amazon makes decisions as a company.

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It has been reported that employees have started leaving these comments after Amazon disabled employees from liking or commenting on Jassy's memo announcing the return-to-office mandate, according to one anonymous employee. It is clear from each comment that the poster is a member of the company and what his or her role is.

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Staff members who posted on the Slack channel said they were caught off guard by the announcement, and that it caught them off-guard. As a result, a number of people expressed frustration that, in order to be within commuting distance of the office, they would have to find childcare arrangements, and caregivers for their aging parents, or possibly move from their current place of residence.

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They had recently leased a car with a 16,000-mile limit assuming remote work was still an option; if they had to come into the office at least three days a week, they would exceed that limit.

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While others took advantage of the company's previous flexible work policy to move outside major cities in search of more affordable housing, they are now concerned about their commute.

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Employees encouraged their colleagues to be responsible and avoid creating too much of a stir since it could cause the channel to be shut down if Jassy was invited.

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Staffers are putting "Remote Advocacy" in their Slack statuses to show their support.

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The petition not only conveys their concern about the mandate but also provides a number of data points and studies illustrating the benefits of remote work, such as increased productivity, as well as a greater ability to attract and retain top talent.

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Amazon previously left it up to individual managers to decide how often their teams would be expected to come into the office and when they would do so. Jassy had also embraced remote and hybrid work in the past, even though he acknowledged that Amazon was still in the early stages of experimenting, learning, and adjusting and that its return-to-office approach might change in the future.

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Jassy realized last week that calling employees back to work would pose some challenges.

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“In a memo announcing the mandate, Jassy wrote: “While we know that our office experience will not be perfect at first, it will continue to improve steadily over the coming months (and years) as our real estate and facilities teams smooth out the wrinkles. In the end, we will keep evolving how we want our offices to be set up in order to reflect the new ways we work in the future.”

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As part of the recovery from the Covid pandemic, a number of technology companies have returned to in-person work. Apple's and Google's hybrid employees have been required to return to work four days a week since last year, and Disney has started requiring hybrid employees to return to work four days a week as of January.

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