Amazon to cut down on managers to strengthen culture

Three years after replacing Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is still busy refining the organizational structure and processes at the online giant. In a memo to Amazon’s workforce, Jassy has announced, among other things, an end to hybrid work and a commitment to further squeeze out bureaucracy by flattening the organizational hierarchy.

Jassy aims to streamline Amazon bureaucracy by increasing the ratio of employees to managers by at least 15% by the end of the first quarter of 2025 — which is to say, within the next six months.

“Having fewer managers will remove layers and flatten organizations more than they are today,” he explained. “If we do this work well, it will increase our teammates’ ability to move fast, clarify and invigorate their sense of ownership, drive decision-making closer to the front lines where it most impacts customers (and the business), decrease bureaucracy, and strengthen our organizations’ ability to make customers’ lives better and easier every day.”

In this context, Jassy referred to various grievances that are to be eliminated, such as:

• Preliminary meetings for preliminary meetings of decision-making meetings,
• A large number of managers who feel they need to review an issue before moving forward, and
• Owners of initiatives who feel less compelled to make recommendations because the decision is made elsewhere.

“Most decisions we make are two-way doors, and as such, we want more of our teammates feeling like they can move fast without unnecessary processes, meetings, mechanisms, and layers that create overhead and waste valuable time,” said the Amazon CEO.

Jassy also pointed out that he has set up a “bureaucracy mailbox” in which Amazon employees can post examples of unnecessary or overly bureaucratic processes.

“To be clear, companies need process to run effectively, and process does not equal bureaucracy, but unnecessary and excessive process or rules should be called out and extinguished,” he states. “I will read these emails and action them accordingly.”

Jassy noted that as Amazon has grown its teams quickly in recent years, and with this has meant the introduction of a lot of managers, adding more layers to the organizational structure than before. Shifting the ratio of employees to managers with enable the company’s “very smart, high judgment, inventive, delivery-focused, and missionary teammates” to “have high ownership” over the detailed work they do everyday.

Rolling back hybrid work

As part of the announcement, Jassy also wrote that Amazon will be eliminating its hybrid work and shard desk policies that have been in place over the past 15 months.

“Before the pandemic, it was not a given that people could work remotely two days a week and that will remain the case in the future,” he writes.

According to the plan, all Amazon employees will be required to go to the office five days a week from January 2, 2025 — except in emergencies and already approved by senior management.

Of in-office working, Jassy wrote: “We’ve observed that it’s easier for our teammates to learn, model, practice, and strengthen our culture; 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. If anything, the last 15 months we’ve been back in the office at least three days a week has strengthened our conviction about the benefits.”