Amazon, the global online retailer and webservices giant, wants its corporate staff back in the office. From January they will be asked to move from the current arrangement of working three days a week in the office to five.
The company cites the need for better collaboration as the main rationale for the change, which will affect 4,000 people who work in Ireland for AWS, its cloud computing arm.
Anecdotally the evidence is that the announcement has not gone down well with its Irish workforce, some of whom believe it is an effort to reduce headcount through natural attrition as staff will opt to leave rather than return to the office full time. The company denies this.
It seems inevitable that some Amazon employees will seek to avail of the EU Work Life Balance Directive, which has been transposed into Irish law and gives employees the right to seek flexible and remote working. Earlier this year the Workplace Relations Commission published guidelines on its implementation. Employers are required to consider requests in an objective, fair and reasonable manner and provide written reasons for refusal. An employee who feels their rights have been breached can file a complaint with the WRC which can direct compliance and award compensation. How this will work in practice is not clear.
Ireland has one of the highest percentages of employees working from home in the EU at over 25 per cent. Over half say they would not take a job that did not offer flexible working.
Ireland also has an economic model tied to a relatively small number of mostly US multinationals who pay huge amounts of corporation tax and do not want their hands tied.
The hope was that the embrace of flexible working by most multinationals with a significant presence here would mean a potential conflict could be avoided. Amazon’s announcement would appear to have put paid to that. The outcome of its push to get staff back into the office will be closely watched here and across the Atlantic.