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Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

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Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#81

Post by lolinder »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #27
wubrr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The managers are just following the (fairly absurd imo), amazon internal processes for the most part. If the processes don't change, there are just going to be a bunch of overloaded managers. The current processes, culture, and 'principles'/dogmas are inefficient, contradictory and toxic af.

Who created the policies and procedures?

If the answer you were looking for was "managers", then you have no concept of just how big Amazon is.

According to TFA they have about 106000 managers before this layoff. You don't give 106k people any meaningful control over the company's policies and procedures, that has to come from the layers above the managers, probably several layers up.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#82

Post by hintymad »

This is also more than just saving a few billions of dollars but making a giant like Amazon more efficient, especially when it comes to making decisions. It's just too soul crushing to have a dozen of people who spend all day gatekeeping each project instead of building anything.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#83

Post by lovich »

random3 wrote: post #37
wubrr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The managers are just following the (fairly absurd imo), amazon internal processes for the most part. If the processes don't change, there are just going to be a bunch of overloaded managers. The current processes, culture, and 'principles'/dogmas are inefficient, contradictory and toxic af.

that's the definition of an incompetent / mediocre manager. Most organizations expect their employees and managers in poarticular to be "breaking doors", which is the opposite attitude to blindly following any internal process.

You have a very warped view of the world if you think most companies, or even Amazon in particular, are expecting their employees to be “breaking doors”.

They are literally mandating people come in to sit in a room on video calls with people sitting in a room in other offices all around the country/world. That’s the most egregious one, but add up all the controls, pair it with layoffs and threats of more, and you’re not going to end up with an employee base that’s testing the limits of what’s possible. You’ll end up with a well behaved herd of docile workers.

They’re not going to change that behavior by getting rid of middle managers when those demands are coming from the C levels or the board

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#84

Post by bdangubic »

beambot wrote: post #78
bb88 wrote: post #24

I'm going to make the observation that politics in a company is caused by management. The more "politics" you have at a company, the more you pay in a "political tax". Effort which should benefit the company is delayed or made harder as employees have to bob and weave to get through the politics. I do believe if you want real culture change in a company, the best way to do it is to show managers the door, because tha…

> I'm saying get rid of bad management. How do you propose measuring good versus bad management?

by who is better at corporate politics of course :)

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#85

Post by bdangubic »

Kurd wrote: post #64
wkat4242 wrote: post #26

Haha a friend was just recommending I apply for a job there. I told her hell no. It's one of the worst in big tech. Probably second worst after twitter. The next one she came up with was Microsoft lol. I work with them a lot and I hate it. I work for an enterprise now but a pretty decent European one. I don't think I could work for a US big tech company.

I have had a long career working for F50 companies across a few decades. I can tell you, my time as a senior manager at Microsoft in mid 00’s has been the most pleasant experience I have had working in the private sector. A lot has changed in the past 20 years, but I am in touch with many colleagues still working there, and we still recommend Microsoft over the rest.

over my 25+ years I’ve heard the exact same thing - no personal experience, just hearing other people’s

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#86

Post by bb88 »

CharlieDigital wrote: post #71
raincom wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Figuring out "bad management" is really a hard problem. The same problem exists in the government bureaucracies too.

Incredibly hard. If there were some formula and it was really easy to just keep "the good ones", then every company would only have great managers. It's simply not that easy at scale.

Listen to yourself. It's management's job to manage people. Some of those people are going to be managers. So management can't police themselves apparently?

I don't buy it.

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#87

Post by [deleted] »

random3 wrote: post #37
wubrr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The managers are just following the (fairly absurd imo), amazon internal processes for the most part. If the processes don't change, there are just going to be a bunch of overloaded managers. The current processes, culture, and 'principles'/dogmas are inefficient, contradictory and toxic af.

that's the definition of an incompetent / mediocre manager. Most organizations expect their employees and managers in poarticular to be "breaking doors", which is the opposite attitude to blindly following any internal process.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#88

Post by bdangubic »

random3 wrote: post #37
wubrr wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The managers are just following the (fairly absurd imo), amazon internal processes for the most part. If the processes don't change, there are just going to be a bunch of overloaded managers. The current processes, culture, and 'principles'/dogmas are inefficient, contradictory and toxic af.

that's the definition of an incompetent / mediocre manager. Most organizations expect their employees and managers in poarticular to be "breaking doors", which is the opposite attitude to blindly following any internal process.

this is same as saying soldiers in the military have the right to decide which orders they can disobey and which not

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#89

Post by netdur »

wkat4242 wrote: post #26

Haha a friend was just recommending I apply for a job there. I told her hell no. It's one of the worst in big tech. Probably second worst after twitter. The next one she came up with was Microsoft lol. I work with them a lot and I hate it. I work for an enterprise now but a pretty decent European one. I don't think I could work for a US big tech company.

I never heard it was bad at twitter! why is that?

Re: Amazon plans to lay off 14,000 managerial positions to save $3.5B yearly

#90

Post by croes »

Kurd wrote: post #64
wkat4242 wrote: post #26

Haha a friend was just recommending I apply for a job there. I told her hell no. It's one of the worst in big tech. Probably second worst after twitter. The next one she came up with was Microsoft lol. I work with them a lot and I hate it. I work for an enterprise now but a pretty decent European one. I don't think I could work for a US big tech company.

I have had a long career working for F50 companies across a few decades. I can tell you, my time as a senior manager at Microsoft in mid 00’s has been the most pleasant experience I have had working in the private sector. A lot has changed in the past 20 years, but I am in touch with many colleagues still working there, and we still recommend Microsoft over the rest.

The people still working at MS recommend MS?

Quelle surprise.

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