Amazon’s Destructive Culture Exposed - or Not?
Colin Shaw
LinkedIn 'Top Voice' & influencer Customer Experience & Marketing | Financial Times Award Leading Consultancy 4 Straight Years | Host of 'The Intuitive Customer' in Top 2% | Best-selling Author x 7 | Conference Speaker
Amazon is in some hot water right now. The New York Times article appearing last Saturday has many people wondering if Amazon is the company they thought it was.
The article in the NY Times tells a story of an employee culture where workers are never off the clock. (Oh dear! Welcome to corporate America, I say!) People are apparently expected to work all the time. (Well, if you don’t like it the answer is simple: Find another job.) It also describes managers penalizing people for having family or medical emergencies, and encourage each and every employee to tattletale on their co-workers. One employee interviewed said that it was routine to see people crying at their desk. (In my view the answer is that he or she is in the wrong job). Maybe Amazon should take the Zappo’s example of paying people to leave the company after six weeks of training to ensure they get the right people.
A rebuttal posted by an “Amazonian” denies the validity of the claims published in the Times. However, I believe there is plenty of truth to go around for both sides, and the proof will be in the Amazon pudding as it were.
What do I mean by that? Simply put: if Amazon’s workplace culture is despotic as the NY Times article said it is, then their product and the resulting Customer Experience would be, too. For my part, I don’t believe it’s as bad as all that.
I have to admit, I raised an eyebrow during this litany of allegations. It sounded like Amazon was a house of horrors for those that called themselves “Amazonians.” I wondered how anyone would ever work at a terrible place like that.
But then I remembered Steve Jobs. I remembered the ad that they run:
"Heres to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."
Amazon is trying to break the mold. I applaud them as it is how change happens. Are there a few people that are poor managers in Amazon? When you have 180,000 employees that is a statistical certainty.
So could it possibly be that the culture at Amazon was so egregiously unhealthy as described? The truth is that it’s possible, but highly improbable.
Nick Ciubotariu, the Head of Infrastructure Development for Amazon.com’s Search Experience, said the article was complete rubbish. These examples of what employees experienced at Amazon were not the norm, but the side effects of the unfortunate history of what Amazon was guilty of in the past. He quotes a high-level executive in his article that admits they used to “burn a lot of people into the ground” but they had changed.
Jeff Bezos, Founder and CEO of Amazon also denies the work culture depicted in the article. In his letter to employees this past Sunday, he said:
“It claims that our intentional approach is to create a soulless, dystopian workplace where no fun is had and no laughter heard. Again, I don’t recognize this Amazon and I very much hope you don’t, either. More broadly, I don’t think any company adopting the approach portrayed could survive, much less thrive, in today’s highly competitive tech hiring market. The people we hire here are the best of the best. You are recruited every day by other world-class companies, and you can work anywhere you want.”
I couldn’t agree more.
While it says the right things about what Bezos hopes is the case, the question in many people’s minds might also be, “Is Bezos easy to work for?” I don’t know personally, but I have read he is not. Great entrepreneurs are all demanding, as it were. These big names (Bezos, Elon Musk, the late Steve Jobs) share traits that make them tough to work for or with. Did those characteristics trickle down to other managers and translate into some of the stories shared in the NY Times article? Possibly.
I admire Amazon and what they are doing with their Customer Experience. They continue to strive for excellence in the experience they deliver their Customers. They are always looking for a way to both surprise and delight them; two emotions that are know to drive value for any business. But “Amazon” isn’t a thing doing this; it’s a brand name. It’s the name of the company, which employs a group of people that make these things happen on behalf of the Customer.
The reason I ultimately doubt the validity of widespread employee exploitation and abuse at Amazon is because the employee experience and Customer Experience are linked. I always say, “Happy employees make happy Customers.” I say this because it’s true. When you provide a work environment that fulfills employees and empowers them to do their work, they get excited and inspired to do great things. They become engaged with the company mission and brand promise. And they deliver on it.
I have also seen what happens when management doesn’t have a great workplace. When the culture is dire, the Customer Experience is, too. Don’t believe me; just ask anyone who works at Ryanair where employees are abused in social media by the CEO. Or maybe one of the employees at Wal-Mart.
The reality is that none of us outside the organization know for certain what is happening inside Amazon. What I do know is their Customer Experience is good. I doubt a culture built on the regular abuse of employees will yield their top performance in Customer Experience. And who can deny that Amazon delivers top performance in Customer Experience?
What do you think? Is Amazon a cruel environment designed to suck the life out of employees for the betterment of Customer Experience or did they suffer some bad publicity for sins of the past?
I would love to talk about this LIVE with you on Periscope. I will broadcast tomorrow at 12PM EST, @ColinShaw_CX, and am happy to answer any questions you may have about this and any other topic. Download the app for free, here: https://periscope.tv
If you enjoyed this post, you might be interested in the following blogs:
Colin Shaw is the founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy, one of the world's first organizations devoted to customer experience. Colin is an international author of five bestselling books and an engaging keynote speaker.
Follow Colin Shaw on Twitter @ColinShaw_CX
Senior Test Engineering Analyst
9 年I worked for many years at Amazon, as customer service and management position. The only thing I can say is that every company has their good and bad side. Amazon use to be a company of much pride to work in and its "impeccable image, good salaries and benefits", they had everyone wanting to work there. Indeed they always strive for excellence and their focus of customer first is admirable but there has to be limits. Along the efforts of being the best in the business, they are forgetting that a company grows because of the people giving the service, the millions of workers with family, health issues, debts or studying, etc that really need the job. Back then in 2009 I felt so proud of saying I worked there and people would also be excited because of how me and others used to express ourselves about the company. Their constant raising the bar, striving for success and quality, going the extra mile, etc had many people pumped up but after the years that "quality" that we expected from them started falling apart. Now the response you get from people out there is "oh... silence,, I've heard it became horrible to work there". I believe they forgot how to motivate their employees and started being the common abusive company that doesn't care about anything but numbers. Don't get me wrong, numbers do need to be solid but when an employee is motivated and loves what they do, they will give you the best service ever because they become passionate, committed and they finally understand the value behind it. They will tell you to lead by example and praise your efforts and metrics but when real issues arise there is when inconsistencies appear. They can be merciless with time. If you are sick or over the 7 min per day of bathroom, family situations or any situation, studying, they don't care because "a minute late means one less customer or another customer on hold affecting service levels". I have so many examples of people crying over the pressure of being told they would get fired because they couldn't go on a specific day (mandatory over time, peak season, regular schedule,) because they either had finals, a family member in the hospital (close ones) or even people with cancer treatment, divorces etc). In a way they train people to forget about the human side and think "development/improvement= numbers" when numbers were being altered easily . The company became a short term goal/back up instead of being a company you wished to stay 10 years and more. They need to remember there is a difference between true leader (driven, passionate and have a genuine care for their people) vs a lead/manager (courses, tools, money). Those are the ones that will keep others going and wanting to continue there among other conditions the company will offer. Remember employees most of the times don't leave the company they leave bad bosses. The others leave because of the conditions and abusive work load. My two cents :)
Digital Experience Leader
9 年A good article and I'm undecided on the complete veracity of the NY Times article - however I've seen a couple of people make this 'well the customer experience is good, so the employees must be happy!' which doesn't hold a lot of water here. Employee happiness matters in organizations where you actually MEET the staff, or where front-line workers can impact the experience. When ordering from Amazon, the actual customer experience is all mandated/automated through the UI and ordering systems - we as the customer don't see it, morale-driven errors are picked up by systems and 'corrected' before they become big issues. In fact, in this type of system, happiness would impact customer service less than slavish following of the system.
Consulting Creative Director and Digital Marketer at Free Flying
9 年There is no smoke without fire...
Independent Retail Professional
9 年Allegations and denials are not new. Let the employees open their mouths and table their experience with the company.
Tax Professor at the University of Hartford
9 年I won't be so quick to dismiss the Times article as mindless hyperbole; the perception of Amazon's draconian culture had to come from somewhere. Many years ago, I worked for a corporation where the culture was all about fear, and could not care less about little things like humanity and common decency. So, when I read that employees had their performance reviews negatively affected by tending to sick parents/children, or getting sick themselves, I believe it. That is despicable beyond words. If the CEO is really concerned about employee morale and wants to do something about it, let him put his money where his mouth is. Otherwise, Amazon is just one more corporation that will never let common decency get in the way of turning a profit.