Oct 17 (Reuters) - One of Amazon's ( AMZN ) top

executives defended the new, controversial 5-day-per-week

in-office policy on Thursday, saying those who do not support it

can leave for another company.

Speaking at an all-hands meeting for AWS, unit CEO Matt

Garman said nine out of 10 workers he has spoken with support

the new policy, which takes effect in January, according to a

transcript reviewed by Reuters.

Those who do not wish to work for Amazon ( AMZN ) in-office five days

per week can quit, he suggested.

"If there are people who just don't work well in that

environment and don't want to, that's okay, there are other

companies around," said Garman.

"By the way, I don't mean that in a bad way," he said,

adding "we want to be in an environment where we're working

together."

"When we want to really, really innovate on interesting

products, I have not seen an ability for us to do that when

we're not in-person," said Garman.

The policy has upset many of Amazon's ( AMZN ) employees who say it

wastes time with additional commuting and the benefits of

working from the office are not supported by independent data.

Amazon ( AMZN ) has been enforcing a three-day in-office policy, but

CEO Andy Jassy said last month the retailer would move to five

days to "invent, collaborate and be connected."

Some employees who had not been previously compliant were

told they were "voluntarily resigning" and were locked out of

company systems.

Amazon ( AMZN ), the world's second-largest private employer behind

Walmart, has taken a harder line on returning to office than

many of its technology peers such as Google, Meta and Microsoft

who have two- to three-day in-office policies.

"I'm actually quite excited about this change," said Garman.

"I know not everyone is," he said, noting it's too hard to

accomplish the company's goals with only the mandatory current

three days of in-office work.

Garman said under the three-day policy, "we didn't really

accomplish anything, like we didn't get to work together and

learn from each other," because people may be in offices on

different days.

In particular, Garman said the company's leadership

principles, which dictate how Amazon ( AMZN ) ought to operate, were

difficult to follow with just a three-day-per-week requirement.

"You can't internalize them by reading them on the website,

you really have to experience them day-to-day," he said.

One, "disagree and commit" -- which is understood to mean

that employees can express grievances but then should dive into

a project as outlined by leaders -- is not ideal for remote

work, Garman said.

"I don't know if you guys have tried to disagree via a Chime

call," he said, referring to the company's internal messaging

and calling function. "It's very hard."