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Amazon tells bosses to conceal when employees are on performance management plan
41–50 of 300 posts
Re: Amazon tells bosses to conceal when employees are on performance management plan
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It’s not a “conceal” as it is a lack of discussion. Lack of discussion is concealment. Knowing you're on a formal PIP is to know whatever performance issues your manager might be telling you about are actually serious and that your job is on the line. It's my understanding that formal tracking of performance issues is frequently a CYA step prior to termination.
I was nearly put on a PIP when I was at Amazon. I noped out of there and went to greener pastures before that could happen. I was severely jaded by my experience there. When I started, I immediately initiated conversations with my manager about what I could do to make sure I succeeded. I asked the more senior engineers on my team if we could whiteboard about the services we owned and who interacted with them as well…
I think that he was trying to sabotage competitors. I saw this behavior at UC Berkeley. An ultra competitive, almost 4.00 student intentionally gave the wrong approach to another team in our graduate level computer architecture course. My understanding is that the pre-med students at Berkeley engaged in this behavior much more extensively.
This unethical behavior is rewarded in zero sum games and systems graded on a curve like most tech companies and UC Berkeley will exhibit this behavior.
The student went on to a masters at Berkeley.
Re: Amazon tells bosses to conceal when employees are on performance management plan
#43> Amazon instructs managers not to tell office employees that they are on a formal performance-management plan that puts their job in jeopardy unless the employee explicitly asks, according to guidance from an Amazon intranet page for managers. Wait, what's the point of putting someone on a PIP/PMP if you don't even tell them their performance needs to improve (or they need to jump ship)? They aren't likely to change…
Luckily that isn’t what the internal document says.
It says not to go into the Focus tool, and refocus (heh) the conversation on the areas needing improvement.
Re: Amazon tells bosses to conceal when employees are on performance management plan
#44Why people go to work to places that treat engineers like some farm animals?
Zero respect to the craft. Plus the company is avoiding taxes, so everyone gets paid less thanks to that.
Re: Amazon tells bosses to conceal when employees are on performance management plan
#45As far as I know... nobody at Amazon when I was there got taken off "Focus" (whatever it was called in the past). They only ended up leaving the company.
But that said, I think Amazon had a very long interview process. Too long. (But I hear it's gotten better.) And so to grow fast, they need an easy way to exit people... that's not a bad thing.
Interviews are never a great way to hire people. Working with them tells you a lot more about personality and work ethic and commitment.
From what I've seen, I don't disagree with any of the employees that had been on Focus. Like generally speaking, we showed the people the door who needed to be shown the door.
For the good of the team, some people just don't fit, or they distract... a lot of it was personality, but a lot of it was really they were lacking the Ownership quality we needed.
If you have someone waiting for 12-levels of approval, they just slow down the others. I don't know quite how to say it, but it was a common thing you'd get someone from a big company... and they had various processes in mind when doing anything. We need that "Bias for Action" instead of anyone just looking to do things the way they did them at past jobs.
Or we had a guy who thought, "We're Amazon, we print money... let's just solve all our problems by throwing money at them." Oof. Amazon is, silly as it sounds, a startup at scale. And their Leadership Principles really speak to this.
Some people just don't get it.
https://www.aboutamazon.com/about-us/leadership-principles
Anyway, my 2 cents, as a former Amazon employee... It's good for any company -- especially one that wants to grow fast -- to exit about 5-10% of their workforce every year. Find the ones that aren't doing what's needed... and encourage them to go work somewhere else where they can add value. I never saw anyone bullied, I never saw anyone put on "Focus" who shouldn't have been there.
Playing devil's advocate... given so few people get off "Focus" plans, what's the point of letting people know they are on it? Kind of just seems like a waste of everyone's time. Some conversations just burn hours, no?
Re: Amazon tells bosses to conceal when employees are on performance management plan
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Amazon instructs managers not to tell office employees that they are on a formal performance-management plan that puts their job in jeopardy unless the employee explicitly asks, according to guidance from an Amazon intranet page for managers. This is distinctly not a "Performance Management Plan", as the plan involves the employee and provides clear guidelines for success. If you're concealing that they're on a PIP…
> but it just seems silly to call something a PIP that is actually not at all a PIP. Or it's too good at being a PIP ;) Many PIPs (in my experience: most PIPs ) are not good faith attempts to allow a poorly-performing employee to improve. The decision to fire them was made before the PIP was issued, the PIP is just documentation to protect the company in the case of a lawsuit. Amazon's approach here - if correctly re…
The silliness is in the pretending its even a pip at all. It's not. Management is just reporting low performance to HR, which is neither a process for improvement nor newsworthy. It's specifically anti-employee, but it's not news. Amazon has always been anti-employee.
Re: Amazon tells bosses to conceal when employees are on performance management plan
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It’s not a “conceal” as it is a lack of discussion. Lack of discussion is concealment. Knowing you're on a formal PIP is to know whatever performance issues your manager might be telling you about are actually serious and that your job is on the line. It's my understanding that formal tracking of performance issues is frequently a CYA step prior to termination.
I was nearly put on a PIP when I was at Amazon. I noped out of there and went to greener pastures before that could happen. I was severely jaded by my experience there. When I started, I immediately initiated conversations with my manager about what I could do to make sure I succeeded. I asked the more senior engineers on my team if we could whiteboard about the services we owned and who interacted with them as well…
You don't survive 4 years without doing that. Remember someone gets voted out each year. Your goal is not be that person so you can't help a newbie. Someone new has to come in and screw someone else over to stay.
Re: Amazon tells bosses to conceal when employees are on performance management plan
#48> Instead, tell the employee that their performance is not meeting expectations, the specific areas where they need to improve, and offer feedback and support to help them improve.
As long you are effectively communicating performance on a regular basis, I don't really see the point in telling an employee that "we're formally thinking about firing you" other than dropping a morale bomb in the workplace. If you're telling an employee that their performance needs improvement in general, it stands to follow that termination is a possible result.
Either people improve when they're told their performance is bad, or they don't. Workplaces without formal PIPs don't tell employees to their face that they're thinking about firing them either. Not sure why the formal paperwork makes any difference.
Although maybe I'm missing something, I've never worked at a mega-corp.
Re: Amazon tells bosses to conceal when employees are on performance management plan
#49There are many types of PIPs, and Amazon seems to be trying a new flavor. This one seems to be about managers focusing (hence the name) on floundering employees, giving them the attention they need to get back ok track. And maybe telling the employee "you're getting extra attention" could make them pessimistic and less able to be improved. It's a good theory, anyway. We'll see if it works out.
Of course the other, darker possibility is that this is an attempt to take the evil parts of the PIP and get rid of the actual improvement. Keep the "build a case against the employee so we can fire them without a lawsuit", ditch the "actually trying to improve their performance". I prefer to think this isn't the case.
Re: Amazon tells bosses to conceal when employees are on performance management plan
#50Meanwhile Amazon recruiters keep spamming me to join their cult. No one *wants* to work for you anymore. You don't need to recruit. If someone is desperate enough they'll let you know.
You’d be surprised. Do they pay well? Do they have cool products? “I’ve done a lot more for a lot less” - The Office.
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