• Amazon has told staff in Germany they can apply to work from home for up to two days a week.
• A leaked internal document seen by BI says requests can be submitted starting December 15.
• Amazon has a global mandate for all employees to return five days a week to the office from January.

Amazon employees in Germany will be able to apply to work from home up to two days a week when the company's global return-to-office mandate takes effect, Business Insider has learned.

Managers at the e-commerce giant told staff about the measure on Thursday and Friday via Slack and email, directing them to a new flexible working policy, two people familiar with the matter said.

The document, seen by BI, said people could apply for flexible working starting December 15.

In September, Amazon announced a mandate for all global employees to return to the office full time from January. The majority of the company's 1.5 million employees work in warehouses. Amazon's CEO, Andy Jassy, said at the time that the RTO push was to help the company "further strengthen" its culture and teams.

Amazon said the expectation was still for employees to work from the office five days a week in Germany and that it had a similar flexible work policy before the pandemic.

"Regular working from home arrangements can be made for 1 day every week, exceptionally 2 days every week, and are limited to a one-year time frame," the document said.

It added that the policy applied to all Amazon employees in Germany but that it did not include Twitch and Audible employees. It said Amazon could reconsider or change informal arrangements "at its discretion at any time."

The rule includes two types of work arrangements: informal and formal. Under the formal arrangement, employees can request to work from home for up to two days a week and change their scheduled hours, the document said.

On an informal basis, managers can approve ad hoc requests made with 24 hours' notice to work from home, it added.

It said formal flexible working arrangements change employee contractual terms and conditions and "require documentation."

The document also said that Amazon would take disciplinary action, including terminating employment, for staff who fail to comply with the policy.

Announcing the five-day RTO mandate in September, Jassy said he wanted Amazon to "operate like the world's largest startup."

He added: "That means having a passion for constantly inventing for customers, strong urgency (for most big opportunities, it's a race!), high ownership, fast decision-making, scrappiness and frugality, deeply connected collaboration (you need to be joined at the hip with your teammates when inventing and solving hard problems), and a shared commitment to each other."

Amazon said in June that it's on track to have more than 40,000 permanent employees in Germany by the end of this year. It also announced an investment of 10 billion euros (about $10.4 billion) in the country to expand its logistics network and cloud infrastructure.

Are you a tech worker with insights to share? Contact the reporter, Jyoti Mann, via email at [email protected] or Signal at jyotimann.11. Reach out via a nonwork device.

• Greg Mansell says some employers are scrutinizing accommodation requests amid rising RTO mandates.
• Mansell says the process can be stressful for disabled employees, leading to some job resignations.
• Mansell advises employees to use their primary care doctor instead of a specialist to file requests.

This as-told-to article is based on a conversation with Greg Mansell, 40, an employment lawyer based in New York City. It's been edited for length and clarity.

Requesting an ADA health accommodation should be a collaborative process between the employer and the employee in which the main goal is to provide a medically necessary accommodation that doesn't place an undue burden on the employer.

With the rise of RTO mandates and the subsequent increase in work-from-home accommodation requests, some employers are elongating the process and scrutinizing requests more thoroughly. I believe this is to ensure employees aren't abusing the system.

Unfortunately, increasingly drawn-out and laborious processes can put added stress on disabled employees and, in some cases, may influence them to walk away from a job.

As an employment lawyer of 15 years, here are my tips for employees to overcome four hurdles in the accommodation request process.

1. Don't wait for your specialist

After an accommodation is requested, employers may ask the employee's medical provider to fill out an accommodation request detailing the underlying impairment, the restrictions it imposes, and the requested accommodation.

The employer may want the request filed by a specialist if the patient sees one, but these doctors can be hard to get a hold of. I remind people that their primary care doctor has access to all medical records and can provide the same information. It doesn't have to come directly from the specialist's mouth.

2. Prepare the request for your doctor

Some doctors simply don't like dealing with the employment process, so it can be helpful to take the burden off them in any way possible. It may be useful for the disabled employee to prepare their own accommodation request and present it for their doctor's review.

The doctor may approve it or change it for accuracy, but it makes the process significantly less taxing for the doctor.

3. Consider consulting a lawyer

The Americans with Disability Act is one of the most complex employment laws, so employees and medical professionals may make mistakes that lead to a wrongfully denied accommodation request.

For example, the medical professional may not specify the medical condition and, instead, state only that an employee needs an accommodation. This does not give the employer sufficient information to determine if the accommodation, or some other accommodation, is medically necessary.

Employment lawyers understand the process and can make sure an employee provides everything needed and hold the employer to the ADA's requirements. The downside, of course, is that this is a time-consuming process and the attorneys' fees can become quite expensive.

4. Document everything

If you consult a lawyer, it's helpful to have as much documentation of the accommodation request process as possible. Documentation helps us determine whether the employer followed the proper procedures.

You can't force an employer to have a conversation through email, but you can and should follow up any virtual or in-person meetings with the bullet points of what you discussed as a way to memorialize the conversation.

If you're going through the accommodation process amid your company's RTO mandate and would like to share your story, please email Tess Martinelli at [email protected].