Amazon is cracking down on efforts by corporate employees to avoid office hours.
According to Business Insider, Amazon is monitoring the number of hours corporate employees spend in the office. Teams in the company’s retail and cloud computing divisions, among others, have been informed via Slack messages that they need to be in the office for at least two hours for their attendance to count. Other teams are required to spend at least six hours in the office.
The move is part of Amazon’s strategy to curb “coffee badging,” where employees clock in briefly only to grab coffee and then leave, Insider reported.
This decision comes amidst resistance from employees regarding Amazon’s return-to-office (RTO) policies. In August 2023, Amazon announced that employees would need to be in the office three days a week and that attendance would be tracked, with non-compliance records shared with employees. CEO Andy Jassy at the time warned that employees who could not “disagree and commit” likely would not find a place at Amazon.
This latest enforcement coincides with Amazon’s Prime Day event, which is expected to generate up to $14 billion in sales over two days, making it one of the most profitable periods for the retail giant and a significant event for the e-commerce sector.