Leaked email shows Twitch not following Amazon's new RTO policy

“We have a special exception and, for practical reasons, as I mentioned at All Hands last week, we do not have the space to accommodate all employees in our office space,” he wrote.

This highlights the challenges of implementing a consistent RTO plan across a vast corporate empire. Amazon employs over 1.5 million people in dozens of countries and subsidiaries.

Twitch is the biggest exception to Amazon's policy so far, but there are other nuances as well. Amazon's audiobook company Audible will implement the RTO rule in April, while One Medical's RTO will take effect in October 2025, as BI previously reported.

When some employees in the same company are treated differently when it comes to RTO, it can lead to resentment. Last Monday, shortly after Amazon announced the new RTO plan, some Amazon employees vented their frustration in an internal Slack channel that one person said was “on fire” due to the volume of comments and reactions.

Amazon has struggled with an unusually contentious RTO process. Last year, employees filed an internal petition with CEO Andy Jassy and started a walkout in protest against a less stringent stay-in-the-office rule. The company later forced employees to move closer to office centers, and Jassy warned that those who didn't comply with the RTO could be fired.

Twitch's need for more office space could be a positive sign for the commercial real estate market. However, Clancy's email did not indicate that Twitch would follow Amazon's RTO plan even if the company found more office space.

Clancy has not always fully complied with Amazon's leadership decisions. In 2023, he said he was “disappointed” by Amazon's layoffs, which affected more than 400 Twitch employees.

In his latest email, Clancy said Twitch “supports” Amazon's move to improve manager-to-employee ratios, also announced last week. Still, the move is unlikely to impact Twitch too much, as the company has made many changes recently to reduce the number of layers of management, he added.

Spokespeople for Amazon and Twitch did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.

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