From a source closely involved with this- Amazon tracks many productivity metrics of employees and was seeing very significant differences between in-person and remote people, which drove the decision.

Source left since so I don’t know how much productivity has improved.

Advice to new grads: get into the office 5 days a week for at least a few years.

Those numbers were so convincing they have been shared with employees... 0 (ZERO) times.

Why would they share that... come on lets not be naive here. Do they always justify every bigger decision to whole world? It just creates friction surface for various people to catch on. C suite is there to set directions, not to explain themselves to their employees.

Its like getting refused during interview process. Sharing actually why makes no sense for hiring people, no gain and potentially a lot to lose.

I don't like the situation overall or RTO at all since it markedly increases quality of my personal life (which makes me a happier employee too but nobody really cares about that) but we need to be realistic with various people's motivations.

Orders and rules without explanation or motivation, damages morale and loyalty.

That's a reason to publish any statistics they might have (at least internally)

> It's like getting refused during interview process

Not at all! Those rejected, disappear. But grumpy employees are still there, but less productive

Yes. They would. There is a whole world of MBA and business analysis schools that look into this with a microscope.

The evidence that we have is that hybrid work is a net increase in productivity. Do note its hybrid, not remote.

Why would they share it? To counteract employees complaining endlessly about it, presumably.

Why is it that these "sources" always remain anonymous and outside the possibility of an external review?

Presumably because they’d be punished for sharing such information and you don’t rat out your friends?

> From a source closely involved with this

Bueller?

He's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from a guy who knows a kid who's going with the girl who saw him pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I think it's serious.

This would be impressive. since it complete contradicts what reports we do have of hybrid work (hybrid, not remote)