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Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

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Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#181

Post by rejectedandsad »

fred_is_fred wrote: post #14
ladyattis wrote: post #10

I always have to wonder at what point does this just result in lower productivity if you know you're going to have to leave a company within a few years to another company and go through the whole process again? I understand that some folks don't learn or catchup all that much but at some point GOOD ENOUGH should be GOOD ENOUGH. Instead, we have entire corporations who predicate their HR culture on the idea of consta…

If you backload RSUs this process saves you a ton of money actually.

Not really because they pay the same amount in cash in the first two years. They’re just backloading any potential upside.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#182

Post by AlexCoventry »

mulander wrote: post #144
lakevieew wrote: post #111

I had joined Amazon as my first job out of school. I was super excited and would not mind working the long hours as the project was interesting. I enjoyed working with my team and manager. Just near the end of the year, my manager quit. The new manager ran my performance review and assessed that my performance didn’t meet expectations. I was not put on PIP. Instead, there would be a development plan that I had to com…

> had fewer commits and SLOC compared to my teammates Hope this makes you feel slightly better: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Negative_2000_Li... It is impossible to measure someones productivity using metrics like commit counts and SLOC. There are times where I don't commit for weeks and provide actual business value by solving direct client issues without even a ticket being present. At one time at my…

What do you think the reprimanding manager's motivation was? The possibility that you were doing work he wouldn't get credit for?

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#183

Post by casefields »

plank_time wrote: post #55

When the stock goes from 200 to 3500 in 10 years, and consistently goes up and to the right, you won’t find too many of the workers complaining no matter how bad the job conditions are. I have a friend up in Seattle who is suffering, to the point of being hospitalized for mental health issues, but refuses to leave. So HR and leadership believe that their system “works” but it’s really that their employees are willing…

[flagged]

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#184

Post by a3n »

thephyber wrote: post #137
civilian wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, elaborate on your model of the world. Shouldn't the logistic employees already be leaving in droves since they're not getting stock? Why aren't they?

> Why aren't they? Do you have evidence they aren’t? I was under the impression Amazon warehouse logistics employees had extremely high turnover (averaging less than 1 year). I suspect I agree with you that logistics workers realize they are on a lower rung of the ladder and are willing to work for less compensation. I suspect much of janitorial and security staff in Amazon HQ probably have no access to stock options…

> I suspect much of janitorial and security staff in Amazon HQ probably have no access to stock options either.

It's likely that security and janitorial are 3rd party contractors and have no access to anything available from Amazon whatsoever.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#185

Post by [deleted] »

TheHypnotist wrote: post #92
weimerica wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Work for a public utility... lack of talented employees was stated explicit in the interview.

Having worked for a public utility, there is a fair share of mediocre people but worse yet there are people in management positions who are entirely incompetent and can't recognize/don't know what to do with good talent. Funny enough, some of those people ended up working for Amazon.

[deleted]

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#186

Post by hintymad »

wiz21c wrote: post #138
hintymad wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies implement stack ranking because the management does not have necessarily visibility to valuate each employee. Those who can't stand stack ranking should either join a small startup, where visibility is not issue by nature, or join a team with explosive growth, so each person's productivity and impact can easily be gauged.

> Those who can't stand stack ranking Do you imply that standing stack ranking is a quality needed to work at big tech ?

No, I don't think stack ranking is necessary. It, however, could be a consequence of bad management or of the belief that stack ranking is the most effective way of continuously improving teams.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#187

Post by rejectedandsad »

giantg2 wrote: post #177

20% of the curve is ranked top tier? I'd like to work there. It's 8% at my company. Of course company also says they evaluate against a standard, but it's really stack ranking behind the scenes. It think it's always going to be stack ranked in IT since the standards/metrics are so vague.

20% sounds high, I thought it was 15%. Getting ranked TT usually means you are ripe for promotion but haven’t gotten it that year for whatever reason.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#188

Post by Cd00d »

the_jeremy wrote: post #4

I don't think this is news to anyone. Yes, Amazon has an "unregretted attrition" target. The only surprising thing was this: > The company expects more than one-third of employees on performance improvement plans to fail, documents show I assumed it was much higher.

Agreed. Anecdotally, I have never seen a PIP lead to a turn around. Honestly, I started to think it was just a way to cover for wrongful termination.

What I have seen is PIPs lead to so much stress and anxiety that people are unrecoverable.

I unfortunately worked with one person where a PIP led to hospitalization for thoughts of self-harm, because it was clear there wasn't going to be success in the current role, but there was no way to exit effectively (and there were confounding personal-life stress/factors). The whole thing was a horrific mess, starting with a nepotism hire, and finishing with unacceptably incompetent HR.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#189

Post by a3n »

dragonwriter wrote: post #169
civilian wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, elaborate on your model of the world. Shouldn't the logistic employees already be leaving in droves since they're not getting stock? Why aren't they?

> So, elaborate on your model of the world. Shouldn't the logistic employees already be leaving in droves since they're not getting stock? Why aren't they? Wait, does “logistics” include warehouse, where the article mentions they had reached 150% annual turnover prepandemic? Sounds a lot like “leaving in droves”.

Yeah, they're leaving in droves. They're also arriving in droves, which is why Amazon has been able to withstand 150% turnover.

But Amazon is now worried that they've worn out much of the US workforce available for "industrial athlete"positions. (Their term.) The droves of arrivals may slow down to dribbles.

Re: Internal Amazon documents shed light on how company pressures out office workers

#190

Post by Cd00d »

thereare5lights wrote: post #50
retrocryptid wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was "put on a PIP" by my boss at AMZN, but it turned out it wasn't really a PIP (i.e. - HR wasn't involved). It was just my boss trying to pressure me to work 50 hours per week during the holidays instead of the typical 60.

> It was just my boss trying to pressure me to work 50 hours per week during the holidays instead of the typical 60. I'm not following. Is this sarcasm/humor? Why would your boss put you on a PIP to pressure you to work LESS?

I think they mean 50 hours a week during holidays instead of ZERO, which is the typical holiday workload. The manager saw the holidays as a minor discount to regular time-commitment.
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