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The first big exception to Amazon's strict RTO policy is here.
Twitch, the video-streaming company Amazon acquired in 2014, will not be following the new return-to-office mandate, according to an internal email obtained by Business Insider.
Amazon announced last week that corporate employees would have to be in the office five days a week starting in January.
Twitch CEO Dan Clancy wrote in the email that the new changes in Amazon's RTO policy "do not apply to Twitch."
"We have a specific exception, and, as a practical matter that I mentioned in last week's All Hands, we do not have the space to host all employees in our office spaces," he wrote.
This shows the challenges involved in applying a consistent RTO plan across a massive business empire. Amazon has more than 1.5 million employees across dozens of countries and subsidiaries.
Twitch is the biggest exception to Amazon's policy so far. There are other wrinkles, too. Amazon's audiobook company, Audible, is rolling out the RTO mandate in April, while One Medical's RTO rule kicks in in October 2025, BI previously reported.
Treating some employees in the same corporation differently when it comes to the office return could breed resentment. On September 16, shortly after Amazon announced the new RTO plan, some Amazon employees voiced their frustrations on an internal Slack channel, which one person said was "burning" with so many comments and reactions.
Amazon has been dealing with an unusually contentious RTO process. Last year, employees submitted an internal petition to CEO Andy Jassy and staged a walkout in opposition to a less-strict in-office mandate. The company later forced some employees to move closer to office hubs, and Jassy said that those not complying with the rule could be terminated.
Twitch's need for more office space could be a positive sign for the commercial real-estate market. However, Clancy's email didn't indicate that Twitch would follow Amazon's RTO plan even if the company found more office capacity.
Clancy has not always followed Amazon's leadership decisions wholeheartedly. Last year, he said he was "disappointed" by the layoffs affecting 400 employees and wished he could have shared the news in a different way.
In his latest email, Clancy said Twitch was "supportive" of Amazon's move to adjust its manager-to-employee ratios, which was also announced last week. Still, the move may not affect Twitch much since the company recently made many changes to reduce management layers, he added.
Amazon declined to comment. Twitch didn't respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.
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