On Monday, the E-commerce giant, Amazon in a blog post said that the company will allow employees to work from home indefinitely provided that they can travel to the office when needed.
Amazon’s new work policy is a major change from its earlier expectation that most of its employees need to be present at the office for at least three days a week till the offices reopen in January.
As per The Seattle Times, Amazon’s CEO Andy Jassy signed a message which explains that the company directors will have the power to permit teams that are managing to work from home.
Amazon’s new work policy which applies to about 60K Amazon office workers in the Puget Sound region will possibly be disappointing for the South Lake Union business owners and may even complicate the future of the Seattle office market.
Meanwhile, the Amazon employees seemed to be perplexed by the announcement while some of them saying that they are waiting for how many teams actually will get to work from home.
Additionally, Jassy thanked the 1 million Amazon employees who weren’t able to work home during the pandemic and still can’t work remotely as they are doing the crucial duties of transporting the goods i.e grabbing the orders and offering the items to the customers.
The recent Amazon’s work policy update is quite similar to several other tech companies. With Microsoft postponing the reopening of its offices and Google allowing 20% of its total employees to continue work from home.
Businesses Across Amazon Seattle Campus Affected by Pandemic
The company’s recent policy may hurt the businesses of the restaurants, hair salons, gyms coffee shops, and other ground-floor businesses across Amazon’s South Lake Union campus. These businesses were waiting for offices to open and increase their revenue.
Jeremy Price the co-owner of the Sea Creatures restaurant group said that we’ve definitely been seeing the return of workers to those towers as the light at the end of the tunnel.
The Sea Creatures Restaurant Group runs four businesses in the South Lake Union which also includes an upscale Italian restaurant and a bar in the Amazon Spheres.
Price further said that in the last 18 to 19 months the restaurants suffered a lot as most of Amazon’s employees were remotely working.
Restaurants that earlier used to rely on the lunchtime crush of the Amazon employees, now are dependent on the people who live nearby, construction workers, and few employees that work in the office
Heather Schmidt the CEO of Seattle Coffee Works, said that Amazon’s announcement is disheartening. Seattle Coffee Works operates cafe retail in the Cascade neighborhood.
During the pandemic, the coffee company hike the prices and relied on the clients in the neighborhood.
Also Read: Microsoft Allows Remote Work Indefinitely
Featured Image: Getty Images
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