Remote And In-Person Work Balance Is Key, Even At the Most Virtual Of Virtual Companies

What’s the better workplace arrangement — in-person, remote, or hybrid? There is no right answer — and even the world’s premier virtual platform provider encourages a degree of in-person engagement. It’s all about balance.

Take a look at what’s going on with Amazon Web Services, one of the world’s leading facilitators of virtual enterprises, enabling many to operate without data centers or onsite technology capabilities of any kind. AWS has an extremely robust workplace of its own to worry about, with an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 employees at last count — and that’s not considering the overlap with the massive workforce of its parent organization, Amazon. Is AWS as hybrid as it’s making the rest of the world?

Ian Wilson, vice president of human resources at AWS, provided us some perspective on how his company is operating along these lines. “At a large organization like Amazon, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all strategy,” he points out. “In October of last year, our CEO Andy Jassy announced that decisions on when and how often teams should return to office will be made team by team at the director level, including for AWS. Right now, we’re seeing that some teams thrive remotely, and some don’t.”

While remote work is extremely beneficial for employees and employer alike, “at the same time, we’re hearing that in-person connection is important too,” Wilson says. “It helps drive inclusion and build innovations to deliver for our customers. We have a learning culture at Amazon, and determining what’s best for where we work is no different. We are still learning, experimenting, and adapting as we go forward.”

There is a strong case to be made for hybrid workplaces, that make the best of both remote and in-person presence. “I recall watching keynotes or sessions for hours on end at a virtual conference during the pandemic,” Wilson recalls. “While the content was amazing, it just didn’t feel as energizing and engaging as an in-person event.” Still, for many occasions, there’s simply no need to have to travel to offices or meeting sites. “We realize we can have productive meetings remotely, and we don’t always need to go to the office to collaborate with our colleagues as long as we have effective digital tools. It comes down to the activity and the experience you want to achieve.”

Recently, Wilson says, AWS held an in-person event at its Seattle headquarters for local employees — “to come together and have lunch, volunteer, learn from leaders, and really just have fun and make connections.” Thousands of people came, he adds, “with many coming onto campus for the first time in two years. That shows human-to-human interactions are still meaningful to employees.”

On another level — as AWS has a global presence — “we believe that location matters,” Wilson says. “Proximity to customers and innovation is important. Having a presence in different markets and cultures around the world is a key part of being a diverse organization. And, humans are inherently social, which is why in-person experiences and relationship building from time to time are valuable.”

In many respects, “there’s no such thing as a permanent feature of workplaces. I think we can all agree that how we work has changed,” Wilson points out. “We continue to prioritize creating inclusive, collaborative and innovative spaces for our employees to gather and connect.”