At my company, I am both the most unmotivated and most productive employee. Where would that leave me? :)
In my shoes. . .
me too...
Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job
71–80 of 143 posts
Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job
#72A few years ago I worked at a place where the CEO instituted this policy in the wake of reading about Zappos doing it. I remember him standing up at the weekly company meeting and offering a few thousand dollars to anyone who quit. The thing is, a week earlier, another coworker had put in his two weeks, and the look on his face upon hearing that announcement... I'm not sure if he ever got the money, but oh well. C'es…
What was your experience of the impact that policy had at that company? Anything? Did any lower performers leave to take the incentive?
I've been curious about implementing this at my own company but I'd be interested in someone's actual experience with it, vs. hearing about it from people incentivized to claim it worked well because it was their idea to implement.
Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recall hearing about that for Zappos, but here the offer is repeated every year. Doesn't that ruin the effect - you know you can get (potentially even more) by quitting in a few months? And if it's only offered at certain times of the year, then there'll be a bunch of people hanging on until the offer comes around again.
Well, I suspect there will be people postponing quitting for a few months just so they can cash out with the offer. That's undesirable for Amazon. But I doubt you'd have people staying in a job they dislike for another year just to get an extra $1k when they do quit. Also you'll have compounded another year of turning down cash to work there so the cognitive dissonance might be even stronger.
There are lots of pragmatic reasons you might want to work at Amazon for a while and then leave for example, someone who's studying and wants to move into some other line of work after graduation. Waiting tables is the stereotypical student support job (partly because of lectures during the day and people preferring to attend restaurants in the evening), but my understanding is that Amazon warehouses run more or less 24-7.
Another way to look at this that doesn't require any cognitive dissonance is that Amazon lets hourly employees accumulate up to 2-3 months of severance pay (I'm not sure how much time that represents because I don't know their hourly rates, but I'm guessing it averages out to something like $12/hour).
I think it's a great program. Besides offering a friendly incentive for unmotivated workers to leave; it improves the confidence of those working there and provides useful transitional assistance to those moving on for career reasons; lower-paid workers often suffer economic disruption even when moving to a better job because they may miss a pay cycle or have to take on new expenses (new work equipment, different clothes, a car or moving to another town), so a cash cushion for such things is a big plus. It's good cheap publicity for Amazon, not to mention they probably retain their ex-employees and their associates as future customers.
Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job
#74I would think that it would be more of a tiered system. For some higher pay employees it might benefit them to remain in unsatisfactory job just to make the big bucks. They are then draining amazon and not contributing like they would be if the y were truly pleased with their job
Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I recall hearing about that for Zappos, but here the offer is repeated every year. Doesn't that ruin the effect - you know you can get (potentially even more) by quitting in a few months? And if it's only offered at certain times of the year, then there'll be a bunch of people hanging on until the offer comes around again.
Well, I suspect there will be people postponing quitting for a few months just so they can cash out with the offer. That's undesirable for Amazon. But I doubt you'd have people staying in a job they dislike for another year just to get an extra $1k when they do quit. Also you'll have compounded another year of turning down cash to work there so the cognitive dissonance might be even stronger.
It also means that people will quit at a predictable moment, rather than in the middle of the christmas season. I think it is a very clever policy from Amazon at several levels.
Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job
#76The first (and stated) effect of this policy is to weed out the unmotivated employees. However, Dan Ariely has explained that the secondary effect is potentially more powerful. For those that choose to stay, they will forever live with their past action of having turned down lots of money to work there. So, when they're having a crappy day and hating their job, they're probably thinking "why didn't I take the money a…
Dilbert did this back in 1992! http://dilbert.com/strips/comic/1992-08-09/
Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job
#77As someone who actually worked at Amazon for a few long years, I'm always skeptical of such seemingly positive news, and often think "hmm, could this be another marketing trick to influence people's perception of Amazon rather than actually changing anything", and %90 of the time I'm right :) Here's how their typical financial offer is structured for new software engineers: 1st year: signing bonus + relocation bonus…
Note that this offer is for fulfillment center employees, not software engineers.
Thank you for clarifying this, it was a source of confusion for me as well.
Not to sound elitist, but what is $5k to a software engineer making 120k/year regardless of the cost of living in Seattle.
This makes more sense.
Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your mind almost certainly works like that whether you like it or not, unless you're a substantial outlier. There's tons of research that attacks this effect from various angles, and pretty consistently it finds that we have an exceedingly strong drive towards consistency between thoughts and emotions and actual physical behaviour. Of course this is not an absolute: It will not work on everyone all the time. But that…
I'm aware of cognitive biases, and know they get me, I just find this use really feeble. Individuals and all that. When I make bad decisions I don't reconcile anything, I swear and grumble and cut my losses and tell myself to forget about it and move on, and sooner or later I usually do forget about it. New day, new situation, new factors, new decisions. New opportunities to make new bad decisions! I'll take a look a…
In very obvious cases, yes, people act like you've described. What this effect manipulates is the judgment of whether something was a bad decision in the first place. People can get disgruntled at a job that is objectively quite good, and can convince themselves that they're satisfied with a situation that's actually not that great.
Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job
#79At my company, I am both the most unmotivated and most productive employee. Where would that leave me? :)
I have to disagree. Something motivates you. If you're highly productive, something is motivating that. The question is what?
Re: Amazon Will Pay You $5,000 to Quit Your Job
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm curious about the opposite -- I'm assuming it likely keeps dead weight around longer too; someone who isn't happy or motivated, waiting around for a few months for the 5k bonus for leaving.
This might actually be desirable for amazon as it likely helps them keep their employees through the rough holiday season where they probably see a larger than average quit rate. I'd be willing to bet that the choice to quit and receive compensation comes shortly after the holiday season ends, thus dangling a carrot in front of the employees to muscle through.
Really good point -- makes a lot of sense