First-order effects

• Corporate employees seeking disability-related work-from-home approval face a multilevel review that can take weeks, adding delay and uncertainty as the five-day policy approaches.
• Amazon managers and internal approvers gain a more formal gatekeeping role over accommodations; employees concerned by the process may decide to leave, according to the reported concerns.

Second-order effects

• A slower, more centralized approval path can raise the operational burden on teams that must cover work while requests are pending and on recruiting or retention where affected employees exit.
• The change also narrows the practical distinction between Amazon's broad office mandate and its exceptions, following earlier efforts to relocate remote corporate staff under the three-day policy.

Third-order effects

• If rigorous exception review becomes a standard part of full-time office mandates, return-to-office policies may increasingly be shaped by how companies administer individual accommodations rather than by the headline attendance rule alone.
• The outcome will depend on whether approvals remain workable in practice; sustained delays or attrition would make accommodation processes a more visible talent-management constraint on centralized workplace policies.