Amazon extends WFH policy for corporate staff to 2021

After Facebook and Google, Amazon is the latest to extend the work-from-home policy which will be applicable only to the corporate employees until January next year.

In the meantime, the e-commerce giant is also planning to continue restricting non-essential business travel through the end of the year.

Currently, the Company is prioritising the health of its employees and believes that corporate employees have roles which can be effectively done from home.

For those who wish to join back, the Company has aggressively invested in keeping them safe through physical distancing, deep cleaning, temperature checks, and by providing face coverings and hand sanitisers.

Unlike its corporate staff, the warehouse employees including both hourly and contract workers, have been working through the pandemic and will continue to do so as usual.

Amazon was considerate enough to allow some of the warehouse employees — who wished to remain home out of fear for their health — to do so.

However, the Company revised its unpaid leave policy in April, so that all fulfilment-centre employees were required to resume working on May 1, unless they received approval for an extended unpaid leave.

However, the situation was extremely critical for Amazon as many warehouse workers succumbed to the virus and several employees protested against the Company.

Adding to the plight, a lawsuit was filed in New York City against what some workers and activist organisations call a complete failure of the Company to ensure employees’ safety.

Soon after, Amazon responded to these criticisms by improving its public health and worker- safety protection arrangements and extending hourly employee pay increases, among other measures.

Unlike Amazon, tech giants such as Microsoft have plans to reopen their offices in phases, starting this October. However, Apple currently has no plans to reopen its offices until the end of the year.