In mid September, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy called all of the company’s employees back to the office five days a week, part of an effort to preserve the company’s culture and return to a pre-Covid reality. By clawing back the pre-pandemic era, Jassy reminded the world that companies have officially regained the upper hand — hiring, firing and changing the rules at will. And Amazon has certainly flexed that power, laying off more 27,000 of its workers since 2022 and now rescinding flexibility for the rest.
Amazon’s decision isn’t just another episode in the return-to-work soap opera. It’s actually the canary in the coal mine for a dangerous problem. The relationship between employers and employees has become one based on power, not mutual respect and collaboration. And that’s seriously eroding trust, which drives engagement, loyalty, belonging and performance.
And leaders know this full well. PWC’s 2024 Trust Survey found that 93% of business executives say building and maintaining trust is critical to the bottom line. Yet only 23% of employees trust their company leaders to do the right thing. And 40% of employees don’t feel trusted by their leaders. Little wonder with so many companies using surveillance devices to measure keystrokes, police attendance and test loyalty.
This is a far cry from the pandemic-promised “new normal”–a clean sheet of paper to design and build the winning workplace of the future. We imagined a place where productivity and flexibility worked hand in glove, where employees could learn, grow and collaborate in innovative new ways–together. But this vision has stalled–with whiplash-level force. Through the lens of Amazon’s actions, the workplace looks more like Game of Thrones: a battle to control and conquer rather than create a community of collaborative colleagues. Here are three ways we’re all going to lose if the battle continues.
Work Becomes A Transaction
To state the obvious, the last few years have seen a lot of upheaval. First, demand for talent in a tight labor market empowered employees to make significant inroads in work-life balance. Employers offered flexible and hybrid work options, wellness benefits and rising wages. As the economy became uncertain, employers reclaimed control, leveraging an extraordinary number of layoffs that destabilized and disenfranchised workers. Flexible work had become a common, even expected, feature of the modern workplace, until many organizations, like Amazon, arbitrarily pulled employees back to offices.
This power struggle takes a toll on both employees and the organization—replacing relationships with transactions. Employees are not widgets. Rapidly growing technologies, diverse generational norms and a tough competitive landscape are bringing seismic changes to the workplace, requiring individuals to work together more than ever. The transactional tenor of many recent workplace decisions forces people to protect themselves, to act competitively instead of collaboratively. Employees who trust that their employers have their back are 260% more motivated at work. When people feel valued, share a strong common purpose, and have invested in the skills to work better together, they are more innovative and collaborative. Turning the workplace into a zero-sum game undermines workers, erodes culture and damages productivity.
The Workplace Social Contract Dies
As work becomes more transactional, the underlying social contract among colleagues becomes frayed. Many assume that the social contract is an agreement between employer and employee on treating each other with respect and consideration. That's not a social contract, it's a code of conduct. The social contract is the fabric that holds a company together. It's grounded on an understanding among colleagues, from the CEO to the front line, that collective success is powered by individual commitment–to the mission and more importantly to each other. Colleagues in an organization with a healthy social contract ask themselves, “what do we owe each other?”
What does this look like in real time? A manufacturing executive in a company with a fledgling apprentice program for urban youth cosigning bank accounts so that they can build productive and fiscally sound habits. Another skipping a family dinner to help an apprentice with their algebra homework, because success at work starts with confidence and self-efficacy in life. Or a female software engineer who adds hours to her week mentoring younger women so that they can advance in their careers, finishing her own work late at night. An effective social contract requires a strong sense of agency, where each person has the power and autonomy to represent the organization and its values from a place of authenticity and belonging. Layoffs and work mandates rob employees, at all levels, of that agency. When they stop caring, they give up. And the social contract dies–taking productivity and profits to the grave.
Workplace Culture Becomes A Weapon
In his missive, Amazon CEO Jassy leans hard on culture, citing it as a critical success driver for the company. He justifies his decision to “strengthen” a face-to-face culture, where “collaborating, brainstorming, and inventing are simpler and more effective; teaching and learning from one another are more seamless; and, teams tend to be better connected to one another.” What exactly does he mean by culture? Does it jive with what his employees believe the culture might be?
Culture has come to loosely mean “how I like to work.” For example, the evidence is mounting that hybrid workplaces yield the strongest productivity and creativity. But for older leaders, the nostalgic pull of the watercooler remains steadfast. Many of Jassy’s frustrated employees (especially members of the massive water-bottle carrying generation who have no memories of the communal fountain) may describe Amazon’s culture as “toxic,” a commonly heard refrain when workers are at odds with their employers. Remember quiet quitting? Culture is not a weapon to be thrown around by the person with the largest muscle. Admittedly elusive, culture encompasses the norms and practices that guide the way we work together; it’s the how, not the where. It’s about productivity and engagement and a healthy social contract. And while it’s tough, it’s not impossible to take a more evidence-based approach (both qualitative and quantitative) to understand when it’s at its best. Until we agree on what a healthy culture looks like, it’s just another pawn in the workplace power struggle.
The Amazon decision clearly signals the where-we-work conversation is not over. And although Amazon may have broken from the tech pack, we will now see other companies (tech and beyond) following suit with RTO orders. The only thing we know for sure is that the pendulum keeps swinging. When the economy gets tough, companies win the throne. In boom times, employees wrestle it back. And trust takes a hit every time. Sustainable success requires more than survival of the fittest. It’s time to end the battle and make an authentic commitment to working together. The future of work depends on putting away the sword and picking up the social contract.
First published in Forbes.com.
