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Amazon’s attrition costs $8B annually according to leaked documents

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Re: Amazon’s attrition costs $8B annually according to leaked documents

#21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s actually not stupid. It’s genius. If you can do it at scale without damaging the company’s reputation, you’ve won the lottery. You make big promises to employees, maybe give a carrot to a very select few. Everyone else will either accept the long hours and grueling culture or they’ll leave, and if they leave, they’ll go before their RSU compensation vests. So the other thing you do is weigh compensation heavily…

> If you can do it at scale without damaging the company’s reputation Everyone I know who’s worked for Amazon has said the money was great but everything else absolutely sucked. And they all held out doing whatever they had to in order to get by until they vested, and we’re instantly out. I don’t think Amazon has a good reputation.

Amazon has millions of employees. At this point, if you burn out too many you start running out of people to burn out.

Re: Amazon’s attrition costs $8B annually according to leaked documents

#22

> The same Times investigation reported the company “intentionally limited upward mobility for hourly workers,” according to David Niekerk, a former Amazon HR Vice President. It’s not just for hourly workers. I was actively coached on holding promotions as a carrot. My leadership team would commit to unrealistic dates, taking input and estimates from dev teams but hand wave it. Amazon applies pressure on L7 and L6 so…

> And the Indian devs work their ass off out of fear of getting PIP’d and with their work authorization, they lose their job means they have to leave the country. This matches what I saw at Nike. Though it was a bit less extreme, it was the same dynamic. Indian-born workers got paid half what the American-born workers did for the same SWE jobs. And Indian workers couldn’t complain or push back against unrealistic exp…

Same with Walmart

Re: Amazon’s attrition costs $8B annually according to leaked documents

#23
I'm always amazed how little people know about how companies operate. Amazon does the same thing as many many companies and is treated as news. People are shocked that they are profit seeking, that they do barely legal but legal things, that they don't actively knowingly pay their workers more than they have to etc.

Re: Amazon’s attrition costs $8B annually according to leaked documents

#24

> The same Times investigation reported the company “intentionally limited upward mobility for hourly workers,” according to David Niekerk, a former Amazon HR Vice President. It’s not just for hourly workers. I was actively coached on holding promotions as a carrot. My leadership team would commit to unrealistic dates, taking input and estimates from dev teams but hand wave it. Amazon applies pressure on L7 and L6 so…

> And the Indian devs work their ass off out of fear of getting PIP’d and with their work authorization, they lose their job means they have to leave the country. This matches what I saw at Nike. Though it was a bit less extreme, it was the same dynamic. Indian-born workers got paid half what the American-born workers did for the same SWE jobs. And Indian workers couldn’t complain or push back against unrealistic exp…

Dozens of my Indian friends who work in WITCH companies in overseas locations are actually quite happy with their salaries. They are dying to work in overseas projects.

Guess they are more than happy being a part of captive, exploitable force.

Re: Amazon’s attrition costs $8B annually according to leaked documents

#25
I stopped using Amazon for shopping about two years ago, because of how they treat warehouse staff.

I never thought to work at Amazon, because I heard from multiple colleagues, former employees, that Amazon is profoundly metric based; then the stories such as this, about burning out staff, and about the fake PIP process, began surfacing.

Re: Amazon’s attrition costs $8B annually according to leaked documents

#26
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s actually not stupid. It’s genius. If you can do it at scale without damaging the company’s reputation, you’ve won the lottery. You make big promises to employees, maybe give a carrot to a very select few. Everyone else will either accept the long hours and grueling culture or they’ll leave, and if they leave, they’ll go before their RSU compensation vests. So the other thing you do is weigh compensation heavily…

> It’s actually not stupid. It’s genius. It's genius if you don't have a shred of ethics left in your bones.

It's ethical too, because the terms of the deal are given to the employee up front, and if they're the kind of person who can do SWE at Amazon, it's nowhere near their only job option. Nobody forces them to take it, and they're not hurting for jobs.

People opt in to this. They choose it over all of their other options because they believe it to be better than their other choices.

Re: Amazon’s attrition costs $8B annually according to leaked documents

#27
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can do it at scale without damaging the company’s reputation Everyone I know who’s worked for Amazon has said the money was great but everything else absolutely sucked. And they all held out doing whatever they had to in order to get by until they vested, and we’re instantly out. I don’t think Amazon has a good reputation.

Amazon has millions of employees. At this point, if you burn out too many you start running out of people to burn out.

1.4 million, and the vast majority of those are low-skill, low-wage employees who are in no way related to the situations being discussed in this thread.

Re: Amazon’s attrition costs $8B annually according to leaked documents

#28

> "only one out of three new hires in 2021" stay with the company for 90 or more days. This is truly amazing. I'm guessing the warehouse biz has the most effect on this stat, but still. Wow.

I recently did a contract with a company in the logistics (warehouse/delivery) business for a product you've heard of. Their turnover rate is over 100% every year. The industry is crazy.

Warehouse work is rough with tight deadlines and rough hours (night shifts are the norm, since deliveries happen in businesses hours)

Re: Amazon’s attrition costs $8B annually according to leaked documents

#29
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s actually not stupid. It’s genius. If you can do it at scale without damaging the company’s reputation, you’ve won the lottery. You make big promises to employees, maybe give a carrot to a very select few. Everyone else will either accept the long hours and grueling culture or they’ll leave, and if they leave, they’ll go before their RSU compensation vests. So the other thing you do is weigh compensation heavily…

> It’s actually not stupid. It’s genius. It's genius if you don't have a shred of ethics left in your bones.

That's a bit rich. Everyone on this forum will cry themselves hoarse about how they should only have to confirm to the minimum of their agreements. How is it any surprise that these same people, placed in a position of power, continue to act congruent to the belief that legality is morality.

Re: Amazon’s attrition costs $8B annually according to leaked documents

#30

I stopped using Amazon for shopping about two years ago, because of how they treat warehouse staff. I never thought to work at Amazon, because I heard from multiple colleagues, former employees, that Amazon is profoundly metric based; then the stories such as this, about burning out staff, and about the fake PIP process, began surfacing.

Me too and now i have better & cheaper alternatives where i live.
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