The very first thing that attracts a person towards an organization is the pay scale but the one thing that makes him/her stay in the organization is its work culture. The work culture of an organization matters a lot because it directly affects the employee’s performance and work quality. There are a lot of organizations out there that promise the perfect work culture but fail to provide it due to a lack of information about the work environment. Here, let’s know about Amazon Culture.
Today we shall look at one of the largest companies in the world and the type of work culture it delivers to its employees.
Amazon is the largest product delivering the website. Amazon alone owns a lot of brands and has more than 25 subsidiaries under it. Amazon employs a total of 1 million people from around the world who work at different levels of Amazon. Some belong to the higher paid level like HR, Managers, Assistant Managers, etc while some work at the lower levels of the hierarchy, in jobs such as delivering products, cleaning, packaging, warehouse guard, etc. Every person wishes to be treated equally and fair and this can be seen in Amazon’s work culture as well.
Amazon creates a safe space for all its employees because they understand the importance of good work culture. Amazon praises itself for its amazing and unique work culture. They constantly work towards including different perspectives by listening to their employees and customers.
Before talking about the organization’s work culture, let’s understand what work culture means.
Work Culture
Work culture refers to the attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs shown by individuals, employees in a normal work setting. Every employee is expected to behave in a socially accepted and collective way rather than acting rude and selfish to others. Optimum work culture is created when there is a correct balance between the employee’s behavior that they exhibit in the work environment and the company policies which state certain acceptable behaviors. This balance is the main reason which will take the company towards success and help in meeting company goals and agendas.
Work culture is becoming more and more important and prominent in today’s world because every individual has started to understand their rights and thus aspires to be treated equally to others. Any discrimination by an organization or its employer to the employee can lead to serious problems.
Optimum Work Culture
To create a healthy working environment a good working culture needs to be created. But what exactly do we mean by an optimum working culture? Let’s understand it in some detail.
An optimum working culture has the following features-
- Good Communication
Communication between the managers and the employees should be open and clear. Managers are supposed to clearly state their expectations to the employee and they can give feedback when needed. On the other hand, the employee should always focus on communicating with his/ her peers and managers irresponsibly and politely
- Growth Oriented
Every employee aspires for growth. A positive work culture helps the employee to grow and learn more from his/ her environment. The growth of an employee will, in turn, lead to the growth of the organization.
- Collective Gathering
A positive work culture focuses on making every individual feel safe and included in the community. As human beings, we need connections and relationships to function better.
- Reward System
According to psychology, to make a behavior occur, again and again, it needs to be rewarded first. Similarly, you need to reward an employee’s behavior to expect the same behavior again. A healthy work culture focuses on rewarding its employees with awards, incentives, paid leaves, vacations, etc.
These are certain features of positive work culture.
Amazon’s Work Culture
Now let’s talk about whether Amazon’s culture matches a positive work culture or not.
Amazon finds its own work culture unique and inclusive of all differences. But on the other hand, many employees complain about the bad working conditions and dreadful working environment.
Amazon is a busy organization. Its employees and workers need to work constantly to fulfill the increasing demand for products. Thus they find it hard to maintain a positive work culture at Amazon.
A recent article published by the New York Times highlighted Amazon’s work culture. The article doesn’t have anything nice to say about the organization. The article criticized the work environment as well as the CEO, Jeff Bezos for mistreating the employees.
Let’s compare and see whether Amazon fits the positive work culture criteria.
Communication
To be considered a healthy and positive environment an organization or its managers need to communicate well with their employees and place acceptable expectations on them which are achievable in real life.
Amazon confirms that they place high expectations on their employees whether they belong to the lower level or higher level of jobs. But Amazon’s employees even confirm that if a person fails to meet the organization’s expectations then he/ she is provided coaching for the same. Amazon tries to bring a positive work culture by providing options like coaching.
This coaching program is specially designed for underperforming employees whose jobs are in danger. This coaching program is called “Pivot“. In this program, the employees are paired up with Subject Matter Experts who teach the employee the correct way of dealing and delivering high-quality work.
Growth
Every employee aspires for career growth. In a positive work culture, the employee gets a chance to explore and learn new things. This helps in their career growth.
If we talk about Amazon, most people join Amazon for the career growth it provides. Amazon was rated as the most desirable place for a job. This rating was based on the career growth you can get if you work for Amazon.
Amazon does offer you a lot of opportunities where you learn and explore new things. These things help in expanding your practical knowledge. Having Amazon on your resume does help create an impact on your next employer. Thus, we can say that Amazon provides a positive work culture to its employees if we relate it to career growth.
Gathering
In a positive work culture, we aspire to create connections with others and learn something valuable from them. Connections help us feel safe and secure in the work environment. Many organizations have laid down certain policies and regulations regarding the way an employee is supposed to behave and act with others to promote a healthy work culture.
Amazon as an organization does look after this issue and promotes healthy conversations. They recognize all the human rights laid down by the government and thus work towards protecting them. They are guided by the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Any inconveniences to the employees are taken seriously.
Amazon strives to build a happy, safe, and respectful workplace where the employees can work without any fear. They believe in promoting diversity and thus work towards an inclusive workplace that respects all forms of employees.
Reward System
In a positive work culture, a common thing we can see is rewarding the employee for their work. This induces positive behavior and better work performance in the working environment.
If we talk about Amazon, the company does reward its employees. This system helps maintain the employee’s performance and their behavior in the workspace. Better performance will directly lead to increased processing of sales.
Amazon with their incentives also has some other things that they provide as rewards for their employees. They get discounts and offers on the purchase of Amazon products and some other benefits that most organizations give. But one thing that Amazon rewards its employees with is stocks in the form of bonuses. Amazonians can get Amazon stock if they do their work properly.
Looking at the comparison above we can say that Amazon provides a positive work culture to its employees. This comparison is made based on the policies and regulations laid by the organization, but how many of these policies and rules are true in real life.
To understand whether Amazon provides its employees a positive work culture let’s look at some of the interviews conducted by the New York Times of actual Amazon employees.
Interviews of Amazon Employees
The New York Times article went viral all over the world due to its controversial statements and claims about Amazon’s work culture. They interviewed a lot of Amazon employees to see whether Amazon provides the work culture it promises.
The interviews revealed a shocking truth about Amazon. Many employees complained about the dreadful work culture and how their basic human rights were taken away from them. Many employees who left Amazon said that they wouldn’t even want their enemies to work at Amazon.
Amazon follows the concept of “Purposeful Darwinism.” This concept believes that people/ employees should have a fear of losing their jobs. This fear would cause them to work more and fight for their survival in Amazon. This increases employee performance and work output. The concept itself shows the negative environment the employee works in.
Now let’s look at some of the personal experiences of some Amazon employees and decide whether the work culture is positive or negative for the employees.
Now let’s look at some of the Amazon employee complaints-
- An Amazon employee complained about the number of bathroom breaks they get in a day. All their bathroom breaks are timed and they should use the bathrooms during the allotted times only.
- Amazon employees complained about the mandatory shift hours they need to fill to keep their job. They need to either do 10 hours shifts for six days or 12-hour night shifts for five days to meet the company’s working criteria.
- Amazon employees even complained about the high expectations Amazon managers have from them. Employees are supposed to show up for work even though they are ill, or their family is ill or has some other problem. Many employees are fired if they don’t show up for work. Even during the pandemic employees needed to show up for work.
The employee companies help us understand the work culture very well.
Amazon way of dealing with employees
Amazon has a completely different approach to dealing with its employees. They aspire to optimum performance and thus have laid down certain rules and regulations to boost employee performance and get the most out of them. But a drawback of these rules and regulations is the negative effects they have on the employees.
Certain rules in Amazon for the employees include-
- Every employee is supposed to work every day and complete a specific target. If they fail to complete it they are either fired or punished for the same. They have strict working hours which need to be followed to save your job at Amazon.
- Amazon does not allow any employee to form a worker’s union. This helps the organization to mistreat their employees and whoever attempts to form a union is fired or punished.
Conclusion
The truth behind Amazon’s working culture can only be known after personally experiencing the environment. First-hand knowledge has a lot of hidden secrets to it that internet knowledge cannot have.
