Return to office or return to sender? - Ctrl Alt Lead podcast

Will Amazon employees reject Andy Jassy’s office-based mandate?

Is remote work still the productive paradise we were promised? Amazon’s Andy Jassy doesn’t think so, and has ordered all staff back to the office full-time. Consulting CTO Mark Ridley and academic Andrew MacLaren join Tom to talk all about modern virtual teams.

Back in 2020 there was widespread agreement that remote work was the future: more time and money for staff, more collaborative and smaller office space for companies – it seemed to be a win-win.

Four years on, Big Tech firms like Google, Meta and Amazon have realised it’s not all about output: innovation and culture took a hit when we moved online, and now they want them back.

Employees have been less than thrilled at these mandates, and Amazon’s - forcing more than 100,000 people back five days a week – is the most significant yet.

In the latest episode of Computing’s podcast, Ctrl Alt Lead, fractional CTO Mark Ridley and Dr Andrew MacLaren, associate professor of team communication at Heriot-Watt University, co-hosts of the Teamcraft podcast, join Tom to talk about Amazon’s order and how to run modern virtual teams.

Mark and Andrew ask why Andy Jassy has flown in the face of published research – even some co-authored by Amazon executives – that shows the benefits of remote work. They explore the difference between very mature co-located working – supported by generations of experience – and the relatively new remote or hybrid approach.

Mark also explains the importance of building to really take advantage of remote work, without repeating the same lift-and-shift mistakes made when the world moved from on-prem to the cloud.

Finally, we talk about how other companies can take advantage of Amazon's move – mostly, in hoovering up the new talent that will enter the market.

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