Amazon.com employees’ complaints about firm tradition — a frequent sight on nameless and inner boards — turned public final week with a well-liked LinkedIn submit that struck a chord with present staff.
The submit, by former Amazon employee Stephanie Ramos, criticised paperwork on the firm. “As a substitute of the thrilling, fast-paced surroundings I bear in mind, I skilled a spot slowed down in pointless conferences and middling center managers,” wrote Ramos, explaining why she give up her job lower than three months after being rehired by Amazon.
Ramos posted her ideas Monday afternoon. By the top of the week, greater than 100 000 folks had seen it, she stated in an interview. Of the greater than 200 individuals who commented on her submit, about 20 are at present employed by Amazon in varied departments world wide – and lots of have been essential of the corporate.
Some lambasted Amazon’s route beneath Andy Jassy, who assumed the CEO function from co-founder Jeff Bezos three years in the past. “Love him or hate him, Bezos had braveness and a imaginative and prescient — he had actual all-hands conferences that weren’t pre-recorded with laborious questions,” wrote Todd Leonhardt, whose LinkedIn profile describes him as an Amazon Internet Providers software program developer in Virginia.
One other particular person, Laura Barry, whose LinkedIn profile says she’s labored at Amazon for almost 20 years, wrote that the corporate right this moment reminded her of a financial institution. She pointed to the brand new coverage of requiring employees to be within the workplace 5 days every week.
“I’m ready for a gown code to be carried out after 5 days every week begins,” she commented on the submit. “Conceal these tattoos!”
Worker complaints are frequent at any firm, however the public discussion board made this week’s outpouring on LinkedIn uncommon.
Layoffs
Amazon spokeswoman Margaret Callahan declined to deal with the precise criticisms lobbed by staff. She famous that Amazon ranked second this yr in LinkedIn’s Prime Firms record, a rating of the 50 greatest massive workplaces compiled utilizing LinkedIn knowledge on things like promotions.
Jassy’s tenure has been outlined by layoffs and value slicing — strikes that happy Wall Road traders however rankled some employees. The chief additionally overtly criticised the corporate tradition himself in a memo to staff in September, when he introduced that the five-day coverage would start in January.
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Jassy stated he supposed to chop administration layers that have been slowing the corporate down and the return-to-office plan would assist Amazon rekindle its defining tradition. The announcement prompted backlash, however a lot of it was contained to nameless boards corresponding to Blind, the place staff can complain beneath pseudonyms.
Ramos, the unique poster, beforehand labored for the corporate for six years as a logistics undertaking supervisor earlier than getting laid off in 2023. This yr, she was rehired, however determined to give up. She didn’t thoughts the return to the workplace, she wrote, however was pissed off by the tradition.
She was initially nervous about posting her ideas, however felt a way of solidarity together with her former colleagues when she noticed the reactions accumulate, Ramos stated. “I’m not alone,” she stated. — Spencer Soper, (c) 2024 Bloomberg LP
