beth
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- Aug 19, 2012
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Amazon imesema inalenga kuchelewesha kufungua Ofisi zake hadi Januari 03, 2022. Awali, walitarajiwa kurejea Ofisini Septemba 07 lakini hatua hiyo itasogezwa mbele huku masuala yote yanayohusu COVID-19 yakiendelea kuangaliwa kwa karibu.
Uamuzi huo umekuja wakati kuna ongezeko la wanaolazwa Hospitali kutokana na Kirusi cha Corona aina ya Delta, ambacho pia kimesababisha Kampuni nyingine ikiwemo Microsoft kubadili mipango ya kurejea Ofisini.
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Amazon announced Thursday it intends to delay reopening its offices until Jan. 3, a move that raises fresh questions about the pace of recovery in Seattle and Bellevue where well-paid workers from Amazon and other tech firms are critical economic drivers.
Amazon workers were originally slated to head back to offices the week of Sept. 7. But in a Thursday memo to employees, Amazon human resources chief Beth Galetti said the Seattle-based retailer had pushed that date back four months and that it continues to “closely watch conditions related to COVID-19.”
The delay wasn’t entirely unexpected, given an uptick in coronavirus hospitalizations caused by the infectious delta variant that has prompted corporate peers such as Microsoft to push back their own return-to-office plans.
But the move prompted new anxieties for business owners in Denny Triangle and South Lake Union. Many were banking on the return of Amazon workers and now worry about making it through the next five precarious months — especially if Amazon’s decision spurs other downtown employers to rethink their own return plans.
“A lot of my employees were looking to come back to work and now I have to tell them ‘no’,” said Cajeton Mendonca, who had hoped to return his three Saffron Spice food trucks to Seattle in time for Amazon’s late summer reopening.
Amazon’s decision to delay reopening “leaves retailers and service providers in the central core … in a holding pattern,” said Margaret O’Mara, an author and history professor at the University of Washington and an expert on the role of the tech sector in urban development.
The decision also highlighted internal tensions between Amazon’s office culture and its warehouse workers, who say they’re still expected to show up to work, where many of their colleagues are testing positive for the virus, without inducements like hazard pay. And unlike some other big employers, such as Microsoft, Amazon isn’t requiring its workers to get vaccinated.
“It feels frustrating that they would protect their corporate workers [as] opposed to continually supporting warehouse associates,” said a truck unloader at an Amazon facility in Arizona, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak with the media.
Like many employers, Amazon has altered its return-to-office plans several times, in response both to employee sentiment and changing coronavirus realities.
The company sparked employee backlash earlier this year when it announced it planned a “return to an office-centric culture” by autumn, which some workers interpreted as an expectation that they would be in the office full-time. Nearly 92% of Amazon employees wanted to continue working remotely at least some days of the week, according to an internal 2020 sentiment survey seen by The Seattle Times.
Amazon relaxed its stance later this spring, saying that once offices reopened, employees would only be expected to work in-person three days a week.
“This has been such an unusual time for all of us,” an internal Amazon blog post announcing the latest delay read.
Source: The Seattle Times
Uamuzi huo umekuja wakati kuna ongezeko la wanaolazwa Hospitali kutokana na Kirusi cha Corona aina ya Delta, ambacho pia kimesababisha Kampuni nyingine ikiwemo Microsoft kubadili mipango ya kurejea Ofisini.
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Amazon announced Thursday it intends to delay reopening its offices until Jan. 3, a move that raises fresh questions about the pace of recovery in Seattle and Bellevue where well-paid workers from Amazon and other tech firms are critical economic drivers.
Amazon workers were originally slated to head back to offices the week of Sept. 7. But in a Thursday memo to employees, Amazon human resources chief Beth Galetti said the Seattle-based retailer had pushed that date back four months and that it continues to “closely watch conditions related to COVID-19.”
The delay wasn’t entirely unexpected, given an uptick in coronavirus hospitalizations caused by the infectious delta variant that has prompted corporate peers such as Microsoft to push back their own return-to-office plans.
But the move prompted new anxieties for business owners in Denny Triangle and South Lake Union. Many were banking on the return of Amazon workers and now worry about making it through the next five precarious months — especially if Amazon’s decision spurs other downtown employers to rethink their own return plans.
“A lot of my employees were looking to come back to work and now I have to tell them ‘no’,” said Cajeton Mendonca, who had hoped to return his three Saffron Spice food trucks to Seattle in time for Amazon’s late summer reopening.
Amazon’s decision to delay reopening “leaves retailers and service providers in the central core … in a holding pattern,” said Margaret O’Mara, an author and history professor at the University of Washington and an expert on the role of the tech sector in urban development.
The decision also highlighted internal tensions between Amazon’s office culture and its warehouse workers, who say they’re still expected to show up to work, where many of their colleagues are testing positive for the virus, without inducements like hazard pay. And unlike some other big employers, such as Microsoft, Amazon isn’t requiring its workers to get vaccinated.
“It feels frustrating that they would protect their corporate workers [as] opposed to continually supporting warehouse associates,” said a truck unloader at an Amazon facility in Arizona, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak with the media.
Like many employers, Amazon has altered its return-to-office plans several times, in response both to employee sentiment and changing coronavirus realities.
The company sparked employee backlash earlier this year when it announced it planned a “return to an office-centric culture” by autumn, which some workers interpreted as an expectation that they would be in the office full-time. Nearly 92% of Amazon employees wanted to continue working remotely at least some days of the week, according to an internal 2020 sentiment survey seen by The Seattle Times.
Amazon relaxed its stance later this spring, saying that once offices reopened, employees would only be expected to work in-person three days a week.
“This has been such an unusual time for all of us,” an internal Amazon blog post announcing the latest delay read.
Source: The Seattle Times