Amazon notified employees about the policy change on Monday, though it isn't set to take effect until early next year.Start the day smarter. Get all the news you need in your inbox each morning.

Amazon is demanding that its corporate employees return to the office five days a week, a significant change from its current pandemic-era hybrid policy that requires them to be in the office just three days a week.

Other major retail companies have recently tightened their in-office mandates for employees. But Amazon's move marked a more obvious departure from the general adoption of a hybrid model that has become the norm in retail and footwear.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassey announced Monday that starting early next year, employees will generally be expected to be back in the office five days a week.

Amazon isn't the first company to take a hardline approach to in-person work, but its new policy is one of the most rigid.

Love it or hate it, remote work was good for Seattle’s traffic problem. With Amazon’s announcement this week that it wants thousands of corporate and tech workers in the office five days a week, expect congestion into and of the city to get worse.

The startup founder said most of his employees work in the office five days a week. He said Amazon's RTO push was the right choice for most teams.

Amazon's return to office announcement is a warning sign for remote workers everywhere. CEOs want to return value to shareholders, and it may well be that bringing people to the office can help with that.

Half of U.S. firms asked workers to return to the office last year—only a third have kept their strict 5-day in-office mandates in place

Companies requiring workers to return to the office include Amazon, Apple, and BlackRock. View a list of RTO mandates across business and tech.