Loudest Duck?

This week we hosted the “Get in the Loop” conference organized for the Operations team by our Women@Amazon affiliation group. It was a chance for me to share ideas, experiences and new initiatives that we’ve put in place to support a diverse and inclusive culture. It was also a time for me to reflect/question whether we’re doing enough.

Diversity and inclusion make companies more innovative, customer-centric and profitable. And pleasant! Yes, pleasant! We’ve seen first-hand the positive impact that varying backgrounds, ideas, and points of view bring towards inventing on behalf of our customers. At Amazon, we employ all kinds of people for all kinds of jobs. We like the richness that diversity brings to the table, avoiding mono-dimensional social cohesion. We could not invent this much and be disruptive without a plurality of voices.  

In our Operation we welcome individuals and groups who have been historically discriminated against or overlooked in the supply chain or logistics industry – that means women, people of all nationalities (we have employees of 97 distinct nationalities working in our EU Fulfillment business alone), and people of all sexual orientations and gender identifications. And people who have disabilities, people who haven’t had the best start in life, or people who didn’t get the most successful education. What matters to us is that you bring “who you are” to work, and play your role as part of a wider team.  

Nevertheless, there is more we can and must do. While I am proud of what we are doing overall in our organisation, at a leadership level we can do better. When I discuss with my direct reports, I still see opportunities. It has led me to question my own leadership actions. I consistently ask myself, can we be more deliberate in our hiring of a diverse leadership? Can we mitigate unconscious bias? Can we do more to develop people from all backgrounds within our organization? Can we – can I – be better listeners? We need to inspect existing mechanisms (such as talent pipelines and interview loops composition) from this view point and we need to put in place new ones to provide the right answers – and results – to those questions.  

From executive sponsorship of female and BAME employees to help them take their next step on the Amazon ladder, to increase D&I Bar Raisers quotas, to ensuring candidates for senior roles are pooled from diverse backgrounds, we are making progress. As leaders, we can prioritise mentorship time with inclusiveness and diversity in mind, and ask our reports for incremental efforts in considering diverse options when hiring.

 These are programmes where education starts at the top of the business, and I for one am determined to work harder for it.

Thx, stef