Jeff Bezos has hard-nosed take on work-life balance

Amazon does not have the best reputation when it comes to work-life balance.

Whether it’s blue-collar workers in the company’s warehouses and delivery vans, or the white-collar workers piled into its hub offices, Amazon is usually below its competitors in terms of employee satisfaction.

According to Glassdoor, the average Information Tech company has a rating between 3.7 and 3.9 stars. Amazon sports a 3.6 rating.

“I don’t love the word balance because it implies a tradeoff,” Bezos said about halfway through the hourlong interview.

“Like I’ve often had people ask me, how do you deal with work-life balance? And I’ll say I like work-life harmony, because if you’re happy at home, you’ll be better at work.”

His comments in Italy are a bit softer than those in 2019, when he called work-life balance a “debilitating phrase” because of the tradeoff he infers from it.

“These things go together. They’re not a strict tradeoff,” Bezos said last week.

Bezos is still chairman of Amazon’s board of directors, though he stepped down as CEO in 2021, and his views on work-life are reflected in Amazon’s return-to-office policy.

Amazon is known for having an especially strict in-office work policy.Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Amazon has one of the strictest RTO policies in tech, mandating that its white-collar workers report to the office five days a week, while also forcing remote workers who moved during the Covid shutdown to relocate to “hub” offices.

March 12, 2020: Amazon issues global recommendation that all corporate employees work from home.
October 20, 2020: Amazon extends policy until June 30, 2021.
October 11, 2021: Amazon issues new policy that gives team directors authority over how many days employees need to be in the office.
February 2023: Amazon starts RTO policy, mandating at least three office days per week.
January 2, 2025: Amazon returns to full work-in-office policy.

CEO Andy Jassy announced the new policy in January. It replaces a hybrid model that had been in place since 2023 and allowed workers to work from home for up to two days a week.

While early reports indicated the company welcomed any worker attrition that occurred due to the policy, a recently leaked document sheds light on the blowback the company has received due to its RTO mandate.

According to a BI report, the hub office strategy is one of the most “hotly debated topics” for Amazon recruiters. The issue is limiting their ability to hire “high-demand talent, like those with GenAI skills.”

A recruiter flatly told the news organization that the policy was hampering hiring efforts.