The US online retailer Amazon has a report of Financial Times (FT) monitors the presence of its employees in the United States. He then targeted those who failed to comply with hybrid working guidelines. The group is now faced with concerns about data protection. As the SZ learned from company circles, employees in Germany are not affected.
According to the report, the Seattle-based tech group wrote to some employees in the United States last week. In the email, he tells them that they “currently do not live up to our expectations of being in the office with your colleagues at least three days a week.” The FT further quotes from the letter: “We expect you to come into the office three or more days a week from now on.”
The email is said to have been sent to a select number of employees. Some of them then expressed concerns about data protection. Others complained that they had received the e-mail in error.
Apparently, the employees were monitored via their ID card
The FT suspects the employees were being monitored by checking if they used their employee ID card. Amazon has since responded to the complaints. An Amazon spokeswoman admits that “there may be instances where we were wrong”. The company took “several steps” to ensure that the emails “go to the right recipients”. The letter was to be sent to those employees who “have logged in less than three days per week in the last eight weeks or have not logged in three or more days per week in the last four weeks”. The company did not want to comment on the internal communications.
Amazon and other tech companies are among a growing number of employers around the world who have been urging their employees to return to the office more regularly in recent months. During the corona pandemic, many had stayed in the home office for a long time. Amazon’s three-day policy began on May 1st. Google also expects its employees to be in the office three days a week. Video conferencing company Zoom wants employees who live within a 50-mile radius of the office to be present in person at least two days a week.
Anger at Amazon’s attendance check follows a difficult few months for the retailer. This year he announced that he would lay off almost 30,000 employees as a result of declining consumer spending. In March, the company suspended construction of its second headquarters in Arlington as part of a broader cost-cutting program.