Amazon’s five-day return-to-office order sent shock waves throughout the company and the broader business world last month. On Tuesday, Whole Foods

Leaked: Whole Foods CEO tells staff he wants to turn Amazon’s RTO mandate into more ‘carrot’ than ‘stick’

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2024-10-03 00:30:03

Amazon’s five-day return-to-office order sent shock waves throughout the company and the broader business world last month. On Tuesday, Whole Foods CEO Jason Buechel stepped up to the mic to assuage employee concerns at the Amazon-owned grocery chain.

Saying he wanted Whole Foods employees to feel incentivized rather than bludgeoned into coming to the office every day, Buechel touted initiatives such as an “office experience task force” during a special meeting to address the RTO policy.

“I want us to figure out, how do we find the win-win overall in supporting Whole Foods Market, our team members, our customers, and beyond,” Buechel said in the all-hands meeting on Tuesday, a recording of which was reviewed by Fortune.

“Our goal here is not to make this seem like this is a stick,” he added. “We want to help create and work with our team members [in] having the carrot and getting the excitement about bringing back the culture and ultimately the interactions that we once had in our offices across the company.”

Buechel said that his leadership team fielded 1,200 questions in advance of the meeting, which lasted a little less than an hour. Three employees attending the meeting in person were also given the mic to ask questions.