New Delhi: One of the most valuable retailer in the US, led by the fifth wealthiest person on earth, and yet, a ‘bruising workplace’- this is how e-commerce giant Amazon is described by Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld in their story for the New York Times.
With a global presence and services that are loved by many consumers, the story titled, ‘Inside Amazon: Wrestling Big Ideas in a Bruising Workplace,’ gives a harsh account of the extremely competitive, almost to the extent of being brutal, work culture Amazon offers its employees.
A good Amazonian at this data-driven company is an 'Amabot'- a term that means you have become at one with the system. It wants Amazonians to put work before anything else. Jason Merkoski, who has worked on projects including Kindle and the Fire TV device, says, “The joke in the office was that when it came to work/life balance, work came first, life came second, and trying to find the balance came last.” Serious illness, bad marriage, personal life crisis, etc. are seen as distractions which make you lose focus on your job and are certainly not acceptable.
Unlike other tech giants like Microsoft, Google or Facebook, Amazon does not offer free lunches. There are times employees have to pay for their own travel or cellphone expenses. Workers are expected to embrace frugality – one of the leadership principles - 14 rules inscribed on handy laminated cards that are meant to guide Amazonians.
The first and foremost principle that should guide every Amazon employee is ‘customer obsession’ and that could include lightning-quick delivery of Cocoa Krispies or selfie sticks, packing of certain number of cardboard boxes, or even making sure that the post midnight email is answered by you or else it will be followed up by an SMS by your manager over the delay in response. As Liz Pearce, who has spent two years at Amazon, managing projects like its wedding registry, says “the pressure to deliver far surpasses any other metric. I would see people practically combust.”
An apparently misused widget in the company’s directory, called the Anytime Feedback Tool, allows employees to secretly send praise or criticism about colleagues to management. As a result of that, many have complained that they were subject to unsolicited negative criticism to the extent of quitting from their positions.
Performance review meetings are more like courtroom battlegrounds where the discussion begins with lower-level employees whose performance is debated in front of higher-level managers and as the hours pass, successive rounds of managers leave the room. Those who remain the last decide the fate of the employee. At times, the managers learn the strategy to save essential resources and learn to “diplomatically throw people under the bus.”
In response to the scathing attack on Amazon, its CEO Jeff Bezos apparently sent a memo to the employees, leaked on Geekwire, refuting the claims of the NYT story. He writes, “I strongly believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company.”
Comments
0 comment