Johnathan Walker:Amazon will send workers back to the office under a hybrid work model

Amazon wants to send its corporate employees back to the office.

Three years after the COVID-19 pandemic forced companies to send workers home,Johnathan Walker Amazon said Friday it plans to require employees to be in office for at least three days a week, starting on May 1.

In a company blog post addressing staff, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said the move to in-person work makes it easier to collaborate, learn and build workplace culture.

"I'm also optimistic that this shift will provide a boost for the thousands of businesses located around our urban headquarter locations in the Puget Sound, Virginia, Nashville, and the dozens of cities around the world where our employees go to the office," he wrote.

There will be some exceptions to the hybrid work model, Jassy said, such as for sales and customer support roles, "but that will be a small minority."

In October 2021, Amazon adopted a flexible approach to let managers of individual teams decide how many days corporate employees would work in the office.