Amazon’s strict new RTO rule creates an awkward situation for One Medical

Most One Medical employees will have to be in one of four “hub” cities, Seattle, Austin, San Francisco, or Boston, the people said. Currently, almost 40% of One Medical employees are working outside these locations, one of the people added.

While this is a big change for One Medical employees, it’s a softer approach than Amazon‘s new return-to-office policy. On Monday, CEO Andy Jassy announced that Amazon’s corporate employees must work in an office five days a week starting in January. Many Amazon employees criticized the order in internal messages.

One Medical employees have been allowed to work remotely full time, even after Amazon acquired the company for $3.9 billion early last year. One Medical CEO Trent Green this year even highlighted remote work as a major perk as the company went through layoffs and a major reorganization.

The three-day-a-week policy for One Medical shows how difficult it will be for Amazon to impose its stricter RTO mandate across a company with hundreds of thousands of employees in different businesses spread out around the world.

Despite the softer approach at One Medical, the three-day rule is causing uncertainty and frustration at the healthcare unit, some of the people said. Amazon has been more tightly integrating with One Medical lately, rolling out Amazon’s own human-resources and benefits policy as well as compensation structure to the division. Amazon is also scrutinizing One Medical’s financial performance, ordering drastic cost cuts to control losses.

People on Amazon’s side have been equally frustrated with One Medical, one of the people said. One Medical has struggled to adapt to Amazon’s faster pace of work and rigid culture centered around its leadership principles. One Medical’s staff, meanwhile, feels Amazon is disrupting a business that had performed well and grew faster before the acquisition, some of the people said.

The messaging from One Medical’s leadership earlier this month was that working in the same physical space could be more productive, echoing Jassy’s thinking, these people said.

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