“Looking back over the past five years, we still believe that the benefits of being together in the office are significant.”wrote Amazon CEO Andy Jassy in an internal message broadcast on Monday, September 16. From January 2, 2025, the 300,000 administrative employees of the e-commerce giant, who until then could work remotely two days a week (compared to three before 2023), will no longer be able to do so.
“Not even our managers knew about it”reacts a French employee of a foreign subsidiary of the group. “This is a drastic measure, difficult to understand from an environmental and social point of view. Senior colleagues who live far from their workplace are already starting to look elsewhere.” “This will push some people to make sacrifices (more time in transport, long hours) and this risks leading to even more intense overwork”worries another French employee in the United States.
The American giant is not the only one tightening the screws on remote working: at the beginning of September, the consulting firm PwC ordered its 26,000 employees in the United Kingdom to spend at least three days a week in the office or at home. clients from January 2025. Three days a week in the office is also what Ubisoft, the video game company, imposed on its 18,000 employees on Tuesday, September 17.
In France, renegotiate without reducing
This decline in teleworking is visible in international companies seeking to regulate a practice that in the United States has reached 100% teleworking. In France, the practice of remote working is less old and has been formalised mainly after the health crisis caused by Covid-19, through letters or company agreements. According to the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies, 18.8% of French employees teleworked at least one day a week in 2023. Two days a week is the most frequent rate.
Companies that signed a three-year agreement in 2021 are some in the process of taking stock and renegotiating it. “There is no evolution in a logic of reduction, but rather in the relevance of the organization to end a system that is sometimes unclear.says Benoît Serre, vice president of the National Association of Human Resources Directors and Chief Human Resources Officers of the Boston Consulting Group. Some companies prohibit combining it with vacations or assign employees a number of days per semester instead of per week to better organize themselves. »
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