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Amazon employees in Germany will be able to apply to work from home up to two days a week when the company's global return-to-office mandate takes effect, Business Insider has learned.
Managers at the e-commerce giant told staff about the measure on Thursday and Friday via Slack and email, directing them to a new flexible working policy, two people familiar with the matter said.
The document, seen by Business Insider, said people could apply for flexible working from December 15.
In September, Amazon announced a mandate for all global employees to return to the office full-time from January. The majority of the company's 1.5 million employees work in warehouses. Amazon's CEO, Andy Jassy, said at the time the RTO push was to help the company "further strengthen" its culture and teams.
Amazon said the expectation is still for employees to work from the office five days a week in Germany, and that it had a similar flexible work policy before the pandemic.
"Regular working from home arrangements can be made for 1 day every week, exceptionally 2 days every week, and are limited to a one-year time frame," the flexible work policy document says.
It also states that the policy applies to all Amazon employees in Germany, but it does not include Twitch and Audible employees. It added that Amazon could reconsider or change informal arrangements "at its discretion at any time."
The measure includes two types of work arrangements: informal and formal. Under the formal arrangement, employees can request to work from home for up to two days a week and change their scheduled hours, per the document.
On an informal basis, managers can approve ad hoc requests made with 24 hours' notice to work from home, the document said.
It added that formal flexible working arrangements change employee contractual terms and conditions and "require documentation."
The document also said that Amazon will take disciplinary action, including terminating employment, for staff who fail to comply with the policy.
Announcing the five-day RTO mandate in September, Jassy said he wanted Amazon to "operate like the world's largest startup."
He added: "That means having a passion for constantly inventing for customers, strong urgency (for most big opportunities, it's a race!), high ownership, fast decision-making, scrappiness and frugality, deeply connected collaboration (you need to be joined at the hip with your teammates when inventing and solving hard problems), and a shared commitment to each other."
Amazon said in June that it's on track to have more than 40,000 permanent employees in Germany by the end of this year. It also announced an investment of €10 billion (about $10.4 billion) in the country to expand its logistics network and cloud infrastructure.
Are you a tech worker with insights to share? Contact the reporter, Jyoti Mann, via email at jmann@businessinsider.com or Signal at jyotimann.11. Reach out via a nonwork device.
