Amazon is ramping up its crackdown on remote workers, tracking how often employees badge in at the office.
Amazon has been pushing its employees to return to the office, even trying to force remote employees to relocate closer to physical offices. According to an email seen by the Financial Times (via Tech Radar), the company is now monitoring how often employees badge in at the office to see if it is meeting company expectations.
The email was sent to employees who had “badged in fewer than three days a week for five or more of the past eight weeks [or] have not badged in three days a week for three or more of the past four weeks.” Amazon did acknowledge “there may be instances where we have it wrong,” evidently in response to complaints from employees who said they did not fit the criteria Amazon was using.
The incident is just the latest effort by Amazon that has seen the company ignore data in its effort to enforce return-to-office mandates. In a recent meeting with employees, Mike Hopkins, SVP of Amazon Video and Studios, admitted he had “no data either way” on the effectiveness of being in the office.
“I think it’s just time, it’s time to disagree and commit. We’re here, we’re back — it’s working,” he added. “I don’t have data to back it up, but I know it’s better.”
These comments came despite recent studies showing that the vast majority of employees work longer and more efficiently when working from home.