How are they retaining staff?

33 points
*

They won’t. They’ll just substitute them. The idea is trying to force every company do the same thing, as making people work locally makes them more dependent on their local company and less likely to jump to a better job.

Then you can lower salaries (not rise them) and destroy benefits. Also you can enforce dress codes to make it look like a dictatorship country like North Korea.

permalink
report
reply
34 points

Amazon is kinda known for burn and churn. They like have the appearance of a good place to work by not having a dress code, letting people bring dogs in, and being the kind of place that has beer on tap. None of it is worth the burnout though

permalink
report
parent
reply
13 points

You know, at some point, you gotta assume they’ll eventually hire and fire/lose all the usable talent they have access to, and shit like this will prevent them finding new talent. Until some exec “invents” WFH as a perk…

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

They tend to hire a lot of recent graduates, at least when I was there. People that simply don’t know better.

permalink
report
parent
reply
16 points

you gotta assume they’ll eventually hire and fire/lose all the usable talent

I’d like to think that, but Amazon has the benefit (at least in the US) of operating in a country where most people need 2-3 jobs in order to live, so it’s either churn-and-burn or starve.

permalink
report
parent
reply
8 points

Nah. So long they remain the largest comoanies in tech, the FAANG companies have an endless buffet of overconfident and naive new grads to feast on. Entitled kids who will excitedly walk through the door and proudly display their comoany golf shirts to anyone they can trap in a corner while explaining how they’re remaking and reinventing ways to squeeze and manipulate customers in the name of shareholder value.

permalink
report
parent
reply
1 point

Harder on the corporate side, but this has been an issue in the warehouses.

permalink
report
parent
reply
23 points
*

I see Amazon is trying something else for their 2024 attrition strategy.

(for those wondering what I mean by attrition strategy)

permalink
report
reply
19 points
*

Yeah - they call it URA, for “unregretted attrition”. Tell me that doesn’t sound like a shitty way to manage your people.

permalink
report
parent
reply
3 points

annual turnover rates at Amazon warehouses reached 150%

Crazy. Crazy that that works as a business strategy.

permalink
report
parent
reply
36 points

How are they retaining staff?

They retain them for the 4-5 years it takes for signing cash and signing stock units to all run out, at which point many people start to get itchy feet.

permalink
report
reply
19 points

My brother is high up in AWS. The options don’t run out. They keep coming so that you’re pretty much handcuffed.

He has a really nice house and all that but he’s been stressed out a lot the past few years and he’s normally as calm as a Hindu cow.

permalink
report
parent
reply
18 points

Well, that’s probably because he’s hit the cap on base salary. After a certain point in Amazon, the majority of your income at Amazon is derived from shares.

That said, after the signing shares are yours after the first 4-5 years, you’re down to the yearly grants they hand out, which come the year after they were granted, in quarterly amounts.

Also, if your brother is high up, he probably got more shares this year than usual, as Amazon announced that only certain levels and below were getting salary increases. Higher up only got shares.

permalink
report
parent
reply
9 points

Their convoluted salary and options package was one of the driving reasons why I declined a job there.

permalink
report
parent
reply
13 points
*

Correctomondo. Got more shares and more grey hairs.

“It’s true what they write. The company has turned super bureaucratic since the pandemic when everyone hired like crazy” - from him just now

permalink
report
parent
reply
49 points

I bet he isn’t in the office 5 days a week…

permalink
report
reply
18 points

I’ve been fully remote since COVID and have successfully argued for my team staying fully remote. I don’t for a second buy that a team works better in person, provided you make the right changes to your culture to ensure remote works.

I’m a fan of remote.

But come on, thats false equivalence and you know it. Of course a CEO isn’t in his office 5 days a week; mostly likely he is travelling 3 weeks out of 4 and the last week he is actually in his nearest office. You would expect a CEO to move around their business. If they sat in an office every day they wouldn’t be doing their job.

Look at the job description and then decide if a role can be non-office-based.

permalink
report
parent
reply
11 points

So your saying it’s not appropriate to have a blanket rule for everyone demanding everyone work in the office 5 days a week… False equivalency my arse. His job description is “make number go up”. He could do his job from a small office next to the sales guy. On what planet do you think defending the CEO will make a difference when your employer decides they need more control over your life?

permalink
report
parent
reply
2 points

I’m saying that many jobs require frequent travel. Software engineers will need to attend meetings in other offices, salespeople will be out with potential customers, customer success staff will embed in other offices, people at all levels and in all functions will need to travel. CEOs need to travel too; if you think the CEO of Amazon or similar sized businesses can do their job from a small office, I would wager you haven’t been very close to the demands of C-level in a business that size.

What makes you think I’m defending Amazon’s CEO to somehow protect my own future? I’m arguing that many jobs require travel, and that’s also the case for any CEO.

I personally work in a fully remote business that has never been anything but fully remote. I’ve made my bed and I’m laying in it very well thank you.

permalink
report
parent
reply
26 points

They are retaining staff by paying more than most other companies, but they also have a reputation for running their workers into the ground by overworking them. Many burn out pretty quickly.

permalink
report
reply
1 point

When I was there actual salaries were lower, but they gave out a lot of RSUs. Good ole golden handcuffs

permalink
report
parent
reply

Technology

!technology@beehaw.org

Create post

A nice place to discuss rumors, happenings, innovations, and challenges in the technology sphere. We also welcome discussions on the intersections of technology and society. If it’s technological news or discussion of technology, it probably belongs here.

Remember the overriding ethos on Beehaw: Be(e) Nice. Each user you encounter here is a person, and should be treated with kindness (even if they’re wrong, or use a Linux distro you don’t like). Personal attacks will not be tolerated.

Subcommunities on Beehaw:


This community’s icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

Community stats

  • 2.9K

    Monthly active users

  • 1.6K

    Posts

  • 8.1K

    Comments