Amazon Makes It Harder for Disabled Employees to Work From Home

(Bloomberg) — Amazon.com Inc. is making it harder for disabled employees to get permission to work from home, underscoring the tech giant's determination to get its corporate workforce back to the office five days a week. 

The company recently told employees with disabilities that it was implementing a more rigorous vetting process, both for new requests to work from home and applications to extend existing arrangements. Affected workers must submit to a "multilevel leader review" and could be required to return to the office for monthlong trials to determine if accommodations meet their needs.

The revised disability policy — which hasn't previously been reported — is roiling a workforce already alienated by a five-day return-to-office mandate that's scheduled to begin in January.

Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy says the return-to-office requirement will strengthen the company's culture, which he believes has suffered since the pandemic and become overly bureaucratic. But the policy made Amazon a tech industry outlier and is seen by some employees as a way to get people to quit and shrink the workforce.

Amazon has denied having an ulterior motive and says the new disability policy reflects its broader return-to-office philosophy.

"We understand that this is going to be a transition and we're working with our employees to make it as easy as possible," Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan said in a statement. "We continue to believe that the advantages of being together in the office are significant. When in-person accommodations are needed, we'll provide them, and in some cases, offer an exception to working from the office." She declined to say how many requests have been approved.

Related:All I Want For Christmas Is an Accessibility Expert

The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to make "reasonable accommodations," including service animals, reserved parking spaces and closed-captioned meetings, to help disabled employees do their jobs. But there are no hard and fast rules guaranteeing such workers the right to work remotely, giving Amazon leverage to call them back to offices even if they've been working successfully from home.

Affected employees are receiving calls from "accommodation consultants" who explain how the new policy works. They review medical documentation and discuss how effective working from home has been for employees who've already received an accommodation as well as any previous attempts to help the person work in the office. If the consultant agrees that the person should be allowed to work from home, another Amazon manager must sign off. If they don't, the request goes to a third manager.

Related:Embracing Neurodiversity in IT Workplace to Bridge Talent Gaps

During a conversation with an employee suffering from a stress disorder, according to a person familiar with the exchange, an accommodation consultant attempted to establish rapport but also asked the person about sensitive medical issues, such as how the person navigates life outside work and how long it takes them to regulate emotions during a panic attack.

The Amazon Spheres, part of the Amazon headquarters campus, in the South Lake Union neighborhood of Seattle. Photographer: Chona Kasinger/Bloomberg

One employee, who requested anonymity because they feared retaliation from Amazon, said the process is so convoluted that weeks have passed since applying for a disability exception. The employee's doctor wrote a letter detailing why the worker should be allowed to work from home, and the disability team requested further documentation. The worker described answering a question only to be asked it again by someone else.

Some workers fear the process was designed to make requests less likely to be approved, two employees said. In internal chat rooms, according to one of them, employees have accused Jassy of hypocrisy because the bureaucratic process belies his stated determination to cut through red tape that he says is slowing Amazon down.

In 2023, after the rise of remote work, 22.5% of people with disabilities were employed, the highest percentage since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the metric in 2008. Working from home can benefit people with a range of disabilities, including chronic allergies, limited mobility and anxiety disorders.

Some advocates for the disabled fret that Amazon's position as the country's second-largest private employer could influence other companies and erode pandemic-era gains for disabled workers. "It sets a dangerous precedent with other employers," said Ariel Simms, president and CEO of Disability Belongs, an advocacy group. "Some employees just leave their jobs if the accommodation process is too difficult to navigate."

Workers denied permission to work remotely can file discrimination complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, a federal agency that investigates discrimination claims in the workplace. That would put the burden on Amazon to prove that being in the office is an essential part of a job, said Kenneth Shiotani, a senior staff attorney at the National Disability Rights Network.

"That's the big gray area. How essential is the in-person aspect of the job," Shiotani said. "There are clearly jobs where being there in person is an essential function. It is much harder to prove in an office, white-collar job since electronic communication is pretty effective."